I 


THE  GOOD   COMRADE 


By  the  Same  Author 


Curayl 

Princess  Puck 
Petronilla  Heroven 
The  Lady  of  Dreams 
The  Success  of  Mark  Wyngate 
The  Wedding  of  the  Lady  of  Lovell,  and 
Other  Stories 


'"Tell  me,'  sh 


said,  'did  you  ever  really  do  anything  foolish 

in  your  life?'"  [See page  130] 


The  Good  Comrade 

By 

UNA  L.  SILBERRAD 


New  York 

Doubleday,  Page  &  Company 
I9°7 


COPYRIGHT.  1907,  BY  DOUBLEDAY  PAGE  &  COMPANY 
PUBLISHED,  SEPTEMBER,  1907 


ALL  RIGHTS    RESERVED,  INCLUDING    THAT    OP  TRANSLATION 
INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES,    INCLUDING   THB   SCANDINAVIAN 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.      THE    POLKINGTONS I 

II.    THE  DEBT 12 

III.  NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  AZUREUM 26 

IV.  THE  OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL 39 

V.    THE  EXCURSION 56 

VI.    DEBTOR  AND  CREDITOR 70 

VII.    How  JULIA  DID  NOT  GET  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL 88 

VIII.      POOFERCHJES  AND  JEALOUSY . .  i Io8 

IX.    THE  HOLIDAY 126 

X.    TO-MORROW  144 

XI.    A  REPRIEVE 172 

XII.    THE  YOUNG  COOK 190 

XIII.  THE  HEIRESS  202 

XIV.  THE  END  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN 218 

XV.    THE  GOOD  COMRADE 238 

XVI.    THE  SIMPLE  LIFE 249 

XVII.  NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM,  THE  GOOD  COM- 
RADE   264 


2138327 


vi  CONTENTS ' 

CHAPTER  PACE 

XVIII.    BEHIND  THE  CHOFPING-BLOCK 281 

XIX.    CAPTAIN  POLKINGTON  .. . 300 

XX.    THE  BENEFACTOR 316 

XXI.    THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD  COMRADE 325 

XXII.    THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE 336 

XXIII.    PAYMENT  AND  RECEIPT 353 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


'"Tell  me,'  she  said,  'did  you  ever 
really  do  anything  foolish  in  your 
life?'"  ...  Frontispiece 


PACING  PAGE 

188 


"Julia"  .         .        •         •         • 

' '  A  wonderful  woman "  •  234 

'"Now  you  must  call  your  flower  a 

name, '  he  said "          .        .         -  27*> 


THE  GOOD  COMRADE 


THE  GOOD  COMRADE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  POLKINGTONS 

THE  Polkingtons  were  of  those  people  who  do  not  dine. 
They  lunched,  though  few  besides  Johnny  Gillat,  who 
did  not  count,  had  been  invited  to  share  that  meal  with 
them.  They  took  tea,  the  daintiest,  pleasantest,  most 
charming  of  teas,  as  the  elite  of  Marbridge  knew ;  every- 
body— or,  rather,  a  selection  of  everybody,  had  had  tea 
with  them  one  time  or  another.  After  that  there  was 
no  record ;  the  elite,  who  would  as  soon  have  thought  of 
going  without  their  heads  as  without  their  dinner,  con- 
cluded they  dined,  because  they  were  "one  of  us."  But 
some  humbler  folk  were  of  opinion  that  they  only  dined 
once  a  week,  and  that  after  morning  service  on  Sun- 
days; but  even  this  idea  was  dispelled  when  the  eldest 
Miss  Polkington  was  heard  to  excuse  her  non-appear- 
ance at  an  organ  recital  because  "lunch  was  always  so 
late  on  Sunday." 

Let  it  not  be  imagined  from  this  that  the  Polkingtons 
were  common  people — they  were  not;  they  were  ex- 
tremely well  connected;  indeed,  their  connections  were 
one  of  the  two  striking  features  about  them,  the  other 
was  their  handicap,  Captain  Polkington,  late  of  the  — th 
Bengal  Lancers.  He  was  well  connected,  though  not 
quite  so  much  so  as  his  wife;  still — well,  but  he  was  not 

I 


2  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

very  presentable.  If  only  he  had  been  dead  he  would 
have  been  a  valuable  asset,  but  living,  he  was  decidedly 
rather  a  drawback;  there  are  some  relatives  like  this. 
Mrs.  Polkington  bore  up  under  it  valiantly ;  in  fact,  they! 
all  did  so  well  that  in  time  they,  or  at  least  she  and  two' 
of  her  three  daughters,  came  almost  to  believe  some  of 
the  legends  they  told  of  the  Captain. 

The  Polkingtons  lived  at  No.  27  East  Street,  which, 
as  all  who  know  Marbridge  are  aware,  is  a  very  good 
street  in  which  to  live.  The  house  was  rather  small,  but 
the  drawing-room  was  good,  with  two  beautiful  Queen 
Anne  windows,  and  a  white  door  with  six  panels.  The 
rest  of  the  house  did  not  matter.  On  the  whole  the 
drawing-room  did  not  so  very  much  matter,  because  visi- 
tors seldom  went  into  it  when  the  Miss  Polkingtons  were 
not  there;  and  when  they  were,  no  one  but  a  jealous 
woman  would  have  noticed  that  the  furniture  was  rather 
slight,  and  there  were  no  flowers  except  those  in  obvious 
places. 

There  was  only  one  Miss  Polkington  in  the  drawing- 
room  that  wintry  afternoon — Julia,  the  middle  one  of 
the  three,  the  only  one  who  could  not  fill  even  a  larger 
room  to  the  complete  obliteration  of  furniture  and  fit- 
ments. Julia  was  not  pretty,  therefore  she  was  seldom 
to  be  found  in  the  drawing-room  alone ;  she  knew  better 
than  to  attempt  to  occupy  that  stage  by  herself.  But  it 
was  now  almost  seven  o'clock,  too  late  for  any  one  to 
come ;  also,  since  there  was  no  light  but  the  fire,  deficien- 
cies were  not  noticeable.  She  felt  secure  of  interruption, 
and  stood  with  one  foot  on  the  fender,  looking  earnest!^ 
into  the  fire. 

That  day  had  been  an  important  one  to  the  Polking- 
tons ;  Violet,  the  eldest  of  the  sisters,  had  that  afternoon 
accepted  an  offer  of  marriage  from  the  Reverend  Richard 


THE    POLKINGTONS  3 

Frazer.  The  young  man  had  not  left  the  house  an  hour, 
and  Mrs.  Polkington  was  not  yet  returned  from  some 
afternoon  engagement  more  than  half,  but  already  the 
matter  had  been  in  part  discussed  by  the  family.  Julia, 
standing  by  the  drawing-room  fire,  was  in  a  position  to 
review  at  least  some  points  of  the  case  dispassionately. 
Violet  was  two  and  twenty,  tall,  and  of  a  fine  presence, 
like  her  mother,  but  handsomer  than  the  elder  woman 
could  ever  have  been.  She  had  undoubted  abilities,  prin- 
cipally of  a  social  order,  but  not  a  penny  apiece  to  her 
dower.  She  had  this  afternoon  accepted  Richard  Frazer, 
though  he  was  only  a  curate — an  aristocratic  one  cer- 
tainly, with  a  small  private  income,  and  an  uncle  lately 
made  bishop  of  one  of  the  minor  sees.  Violet  was  fond 
of  him ;  she  was  too  nice  a  girl  to  accept  a  man  she  was 
not  fond  of,  though  too  well  brought  up  to  become  fond 
of  one  who  was  impossible.  The  engagement,  though  it 
probably  did  not  fulfil  all  Mrs.  Polkington's  ambitions, 
was  in  Julia's  opinion  a  good  thing  for  several  reasons. 

There  was  a  swish  and  rustle  of  silk  by  the  door — 
Mrs.  Polkington  did  not  wear  silk  skirts,  only  a  silk 
flounce  somewhere,  but  she  got  more  creak  and  rustle 
out  of  it  than  the  average  woman  does  out  of  two  skirts. 
An  imposing  woman  she  was,  with  an  eye  that  had  once 
been  described  as  "eagle,"  though,  for  that,  it  was  a  little 
inquiring  and  eager  now,  by  reason  of  the  look-out  she 
had  been  obliged  to  keep  for  a  good  part  of  her  life.  She 
entered  the  room  now,  followed  by  her  eldest  and  young- 
est daughters,  Violet  and  Cherie. 

"At  twelve  to-morrow  ?"  she  was  saying  as  she  came  in. 
"Is  that  when  he  is  coming  to  see  your  father  ?" 

Violet  said  it  was;  then  added,  in  a  tone  of  some  dis- 
satisfaction, "I  suppose  he  must  see  father  about  it?"  We 
couldn't  arrange  something?" 


4  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Certainly  not,"  Mrs.  Polkington  replied  with  decision; 
"it  is  not  for  me  to  give  or  refuse  consent  to  your  mar- 
riage. Of  course,  Mr.  Frazer  knows  your  father  does 
not  have  good  health,  or  trouble  himself  to  mix  much  in 
society  here — it  is  not  likely  that  an  old  military  man 
should,  but  in  a  case  like  this  he  would  expect  to  be 
called  upon ;  it  would  have  shown  a  great  lack  of  breed- 
ing on  Mr.  Frazer's  part  had  he  suggested  anything 
different." 

Violet  agreed,  though  she  did  not  seem  exactly  con- 
vinced, and  Julia  created  a  diversion  by  saying — 

"Twelve  is  rather  an  awkward  time.  A  quarter  of 
an  hour  with  father,  five  minutes — no,  ten — with  you, 
half  an  hour  with  Violet,  altogether  brings  it  very  near 
lunch  time." 

"Mr.  Frazer  will,  of  course,  lunch  with  us  to-morrow," 
Mrs.  Polkington  said,  as  if  stray  guests  to  lunch  were 
the  most  usual  and  convenient  thing  in  the  world.  The 
Polkingtons  kept  up  a  good  many  of  their  farces  in  pri- 
vate life ;  most  of  them  found  it  easier,  as  well  as  pleas- 
anter,  to  do  so.  "The  cold  beef,"  Mrs.  Polkington  said, 
mentally  reviewing  her  larder,  "can  be  hashed ;  that  and 
a  small  boned  loin  of  mutton  will  do,  he  would  naturally 
expect  to  be  treated  as  one  of  the  family ;  fortunately  the 
apple  tart  has  not  been  cut — with  a  little  cream " 

"I  thought  we  were  to  have  the  tart  to-night,"  Julia 
interrupted,  thinking  of  Johnny  Gillat,  who  was  coming 
to  spend  the  evening  with  her  father. 

Mrs.  Polkington  thought  of  him  too,  but  she  did  not 
change  her  mind  on  this  account.  "We  can't,  then,"  she 
said,  and  turned  to  the  discussion  of  other  matters.  She 
had  carried  these  as  far  as  the  probable  date  of  marriage, 
and  the  preferment  the  young  man  might  easily  expect, 
when  the  little  servant  came  up  to  announce  Mr.  Gillat. 


THE    POLKINGTONS  5 

Mrs.  Polkington  did  not  express  impatience.  "Is  he  in 
the  dining-room?"  she  said.  "I  hope  you  lighted  the 
heater,  Mary." 

Mary  said  she  had,  and  Mrs.  Polkington  returned  to 
her  interesting  subject,  only  pausing  to  remark,  "How 
tiresome  that  your  father  is  not  back  yet !" 

For  a  little  none  of  the  three  girls  moved,  then  Julia 
rose. 

"Are  you  going  down  to  Mr.  Gillat  ?"  her  mother  asked. 
"There  really  is  no  necessity ;  he  is  perfectly  happy  with 
the  paper." 

Perhaps  he  was,  though  the  paper  was  a  half-penny 
morning  one;  he  did  not  make  extravagant  demands  on 
fate,  or  anything  else ;  nevertheless,  Julia  went  down. 

The  Polkingtons'  house  was  furnished  on  an  ascending 
scale,  which  found  its  zenith  in  the  drawing-room,  but 
deteriorated  again  very  rapidly  afterwards.  The  dining- 
room,  being  midway  between  the  kitchen  and  the  draw- 
ing-room, was  only  a  middling-looking  apartment.  They 
did  not  often  have  a  fire  there ;  a  paraffin  lamp  stove  stood 
in  the  fire-place,  leering  with  its  red  eye  as  if  it  took  a 
wicked  satisfaction  in  its  own  smell.  Before  the  fire- 
place, re-reading  the  already-known  newspaper  by  the 
light  of  one  gas  jet,  sat  Johnny  Gillat.  Poor  old  Johnny, 
with  his  round,  pink  face,  whereon  a  grizzled  little  mous- 
tache looked  as  much  out  of  place  as  on  a  twelve-year-old 
school-boy.  There  was  something  of  the  school-boy  in 
his  look  and  in  his  deprecating  manner,  especially  to  Mrs. 
Polkington;  he  had  always  been  a  little  deprecating  to 
her  even  when  he  had  first  known  her,  a  bride,  while  he 
himself  was  the  wealthy  bachelor  friend  of  her  husband. 
He  was  still  a  bachelor,  and  still  her  husband's  friend, 
but  the  wealth  had  gone  long  ago.  He  had  now  only  just 
enough  to  keep  him,  fortunately  so  secured  that  he  could 


6  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

not  touch  the  principal.  It  was  a  mercy  he  had  it,  for 
there  was  no  known  work  at  which  he  could  have  earned 
sixpence,  unless  perhaps  it  was  road  scraping  under  a 
not  too  exacting  District  Council.  He  was  a  harmless 
enough  person,  but  when  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  leave 
his  lodgings  in  town  for  others,  equally  cheap  and  nasty, 
at  Marbridge,  Mrs.  Polkington  felt  fate  was  hard  upon 
her.  It  was  like  having  two  Captain  Polkingtons,  of  a 
different  sort,  but  equally  unsuitable  for  public  use,  in  the 
place.  In  self  defence  she  had  been  obliged  to  make 
definite  rules  for  Mr.  Gillat's  coming  and  going  about 
the  house,  and  still  more  definite  rules  as  to  the  rooms 
in  which  he  might  be  found.  The  dining-room  was  al- 
lowed him,  and  there  he  was  when  Julia  came. 

He  looked  up  as  she  entered,  and  smiled;  he  regarded 
her  as  almost  as  much  his  friend  as  her  father;  a  com- 
posite creature,  and  a  necessary  connection  between  the 
superior  and  inferior  halves  of  the  household. 

"Father  not  in,  I  hear,"  he  said. 

"No,"  Julia  answered.    "What  a  smell  there  is !" 

Mr.  Gillat  allowed  it.  "There's  something  gone  wrong 
with  Bouquet,"  he  said,  thoughtfully  regarding  the  stove. 

The  "Bouquet  Heater"  was  the  name  under  which  it 
was  patented ;  it  did  not  seem  quite  honest  to  speak  of  it 
as  a  heater,  so  perhaps  "Bouquet"  was  the  better  name. 

Julia  went  to  it.  "I  should  think  there  is,"  she  said, 
and  turned  it  up,  and  turn  it  down,  and  altered  the  wicks, 
until  she  had  improved  matters  a  little. 

"I'm  afraid  your  father's  having  larks,"  Johnny  said, 
watching  her. 

"It's  rather  a  pity  if  he  is,"  Julia  answered;  "he  has 
got  to  see  some  one  on  business  to-morrow." 

"Who?" 

"Mr.  Frazer,  a  clergyman  who  wants  to  marry  Violet." 


THE    POLKINGTONS  7 

Mr.  Gillat  sat  upright.  "Dear,  dear!"  he  exclaimed. 
"No  ?  Really  ?"  and  when  Julia  had  given  him  an  outline 
of  the  circumstances,  he  added  softly,  "A  wonderful 
woman !  I  always  had  a  great  respect  for  your  mother." 
From  which  it  is  clear  he  thought  Mrs.  Polkington  was 
to  be  congratulated.  "And  when  is  it  to  be  ?"  he  asked. 

"Violet  says  a  year's  time;  they  could  not  afford  to 
marry  sooner  and  do  it  properly,  but  it  will  have  to  be 
sooner  all  the  same." 

"A  year  is  not  a  very  long  time,"  Mr.  Gillat  observed ; 
"they  go  fast,  years ;  one  almost  loses  count  of  them,  they 
go  so  fast." 

"I  dare  say,"  Julia  answered,  "but  Violet  will  have  to 
get  married  without  waiting  for  the  year  to  pass.  We 
can't  afford  a  long  engagement." 

Mr.  Gillat  looked  mildly  surprised  and  troubled;  he 
always  did  when  scarcity  of  money  was  brought  home 
to  him,  but  Julia  regarded  it  quite  calmly. 

"The  sooner  Violet  is  married,"  she  said,  "the  sooner 
we  can  reduce  some  of  the  expenses ;  we  are  living  beyond 
our  income  now — not  a  great  deal,  perhaps,  still  a  bit; 
Violet's  going  would  save  enough,  I  believe;  we  could 
catch  up  then.  That  is  one  reason,  but  the  chief  is  that 
a  long  engagement  is  expensive ;  you  see,  we  should  have 
to  have  meals  different,  and  fires  different,  and  all  man- 
ner of  extras  if  Mr.  Frazer  came  in  and  out  constantly. 
We  should  have  to  live  altogether  in  a  more  expensive 
style ;  we  might  manage  it  for  three  months,  or  six  if  we 
were  driven  to  it,  but  for  a  year — it  is  out  of  the 
question." 

"But,"  Mr.  Gillat  protested,  "if  they  can't  afford  it? 
You  said  he  could  not ;  he  is  a  curate." 

"He  must  get  a  living,  or  a  chaplaincy,  or  something; 
or  rather,  I  expect  we  must  get  it  for  him.  Oh,  no,  we 


8  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

have  no  Church  influence,  and  we  don't  know  any  bish- 
ops; but  one  can  always  rake  up  influence,  and  get  to 
know  people,  if  one  is  not  too  particular  how." 

Mr.  Gillat  looked  at  her  uneasily ;  every  now  and  then 
there  flitted  through  his  mind  a  suspicion  that  Julia  was 
clever  too,  as  clever  perhaps  as  her  mother,  and  though 
not,  like  her,  a  moral  and  social  pillar  standing  in  the 
high  first  estate  from  which  he  and  the  Captain  had  fallen. 
Julia  had  never  been  that,  never  aspired  to  it;  she  was 
no  success  at  all ;  content  to  come  and  sit  in  the  dining- 
room  with  him  and  Bouquet;  she  could  not  really  be 
clever,  or  else  she  would  have  achieved  something  for  her- 
self, and  scorned  to  consort  with  failures.  He  smiled 
benignly  as  he  remembered  this,  observing,  "I  dare  say 
something  will  be  done — I  hope  it  may;  your  mother's 
a  wonderful  woman,  a  wonderful " 

He  broke  off  to  listen ;  Julia  listened  too,  then  she  rose 
to  her  feet.  "That's  father,"  she  said,  and  went  to  let 
him  in. 

Mr.  Gillat  followed  her  to  the  door.  "Ah— h'm,"  he 
said,  as  he  saw  the  Captain  coming  in  slowly,  with  a  face 
of  despairing  melancholy  and  a  drooping  step. 

"Come  down-stairs,  father,"  Julia  said.  "Come  along, 
Johnny." 

They  followed  her  meekly  to  the  basement,  where  there 
was  a  gloomy  little  room  behind  the  kitchen  reserved 
for  the  Captain's  special  use.  A  paraffin  stove  stood  in 
the  fire-place  also,  own  brother  to  the  one  in  the  dining- 
room  ;  Julia  stooped  to  light  it,  while  her  father  sank  into 
a  chair. 

"Gillat,"  he  said  in  a  voice  of  hopelessness,  "I  am  a 
ruined  man." 

"No?"  Mr.  Gillat  answered  sympathetically,  but  with- 
out surprise.  "Dear  me!"  He  carefully  put  down  the 


THE    POLKINGTONS  9 

hat  and  stick  he  had  brought  with  him,  the  one  on  the 
edge  of  the  table,  the  other  against  it,  both  so  badly 
balanced  that  they  fell  to  the  ground. 

"You  shouldn't  do  it,  you  know,"  he  said,  with  mild  re- 
proof;  "you  really  shouldn't." 

"Do  it!"  the  Captain  cried.    "Do  what?" 

Julia  looked  up  from  the  floor  where  she  knelt  trim- 
ming the  stove-lamp.  "Have  five  whiskeys  and  sodas," 
she  said,  examining  her  father  judicially. 

He  did  not  deny  the  charge;  Julia's  observation  was 
not  to  be  avoided. 

"And  what  is  five?"  he  demanded  with  dignity. 

"Three  too  many  for  you,"  she  answered. 

"Do  you  mean  to  insinuate  that  I  am  intoxicated?"  he 
asked.  "Johnny,"  he  turned  pathetically  to  his  friend, 
"my  own  daughter  insinuates  that  I  am  intoxicated." 

"No,"  Julia  said,  "I  don't ;  I  say  it  does  not  agree  with 
you,  and  it  doesn't — you  know  you  ought  not  to  take  more 
than  two  glasses." 

"Is  that  your  opinion,  Gillat?"  Captain  Polkington 
asked.  "Is  that  what  you  meant  ?  That  I — I  should  con- 
fine myself  to  two  glasses  of  whiskey  and  water?" 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  the  whiskey,"  Johnny  said  apolo- 
getically ;  "it  was  the  gees." 

The  Captain  groaned,  but  what  he  said  more  Julia 
did  not  hear;  she  went  out  into  the  kitchen  to  get  par- 
affin. But  she  had  no  doubt  that  he  defended  the  attacked 
point  to  his  own  satisfaction,  as  he  always  had  done — 
cards,  races,  and  kindred  pleasant,  if  expensive,  things, 
ever  since  the  days  long  ago  before  he  sent  in  his  papers. 

These  same  pleasant  things  had  had  a  good  deal  to  do 
with  the  sending  in  of  the  papers;  not  that  they  had 
led  the  Captain  into  anything  disgraceful,  the  compulsion 
to  resign  his  commission  came  solely  from  relatives,  prin- 


io  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

cipally  those  of  his  wife.  It  was  their  opinion  that  he 
worked  too  little  and  played  too  much,  and  an  expensive 
kind  of  play.  That  he  drank  too  much  was  not  said ;  of 
course,  the  Indian  climate  and  life  tempted  to  whiskey 
pegs,  and  nature  had  not  fitted  him  for  them  in  large 
quantities;  still  that  was  never  cast  up  against  him. 
Enough  was,  however,  to  bring  things  to  an  end ;  he  re- 
signed, relations  helped  to  pay  his  debts,  and  he  came 
home  with  the  avowed  intention  of  getting  some  gentle- 
manly employment.  Of  course  he  never  got  any,  it  wasn't 
likely,  hardly  possible;  but  he  had  something  left  to  live 
upon — a  very  small  private  income,  a  clever  wife,  and 
some  useful  and  conscientious  relations. 

Somehow  the  family  lived,  quite  how  in  the  early  days 
no  one  knew;  Mrs.  Polkington  never  spoke  of  it  at  the 
time,  and  now,  mercifully,  she  had  forgotten  part,  but  the 
struggle  must  have  been  bitter.  Herself  disillusioned,  her 
daughters  mere  children,  her  position  insecure,  and  her 
husband  not  yet  reduced  to  submission,  and  always  prone 
to  slip  back  into  his  old  ways.  But  she  had  won  through 
somehow,  and  time  had  given  her  the  compensations  pos- 
sible to  her  nature.  She  was,  by  her  own  untiring  efforts, 
a  social  factor  now,  even  a  social  success;  her  eldest 
daughter  was  engaged  to  a  clergyman  of  sufficient,  if 
small,  means,  and  her  youngest  was  almost  a  beauty.  As 
to  the  Captain,  he  was  still  there ;  time  had  not  taken  him 
away,  but  it  had  reduced  him ;  he  gave  little  trouble  now 
even  when  Johnny  Gillat  came;  he  kept  so  out  of  the  way 
that  she  had  almost  come  to  regard  him  as  a  negligible 
factor — which  was  a  mistake. 

Both  the  Captain  and  his  friend  had  a  great  respect  for 
Mrs.  Polkington,  though  both  felt  at  times  that  she 
treated  them  a  little  hardly.  The  Captain  especially  felt 
this,  but  he  put  up  with  it ;  after  all  it  is  easier  to  acqui- 


THE    POLKINGTONS  II 

esce  than  to  assert  one's  rights,  and,  as  Johnny  pointed 
out,  it  was  on  the  whole  more  comfortable,  in  spite  of 
horse-hair  chairs,  down  in  the  basement  than  up  in  the 
drawing-room.  There  was  no  need  to  make  polite  con- 
versation down  here,  and  one  might  smoke,  no  matter 
how  cheap  the  tobacco,  and  put  one's  feet  up,  and  really 
Bouquet  was  almost  as  good  as  a  fire  when  you  once  get 
used  to  it. 

Johnny  was  of  a  contented  mind,  he  even  looked  con- 
tented sitting  by  the  empty  stove  when  Julia  came  back 
with  the  paraffin;  the  Captain,  on  the  other  hand,  ap- 
peared to  be  very  gloomy  and  unhappy ;  he  sat  silent  all 
the  time  his  daughter  was  present.  As  she  was  leaving 
the  room  Johnny  tried  to  rouse  him.  "We  might  have  a 
game,"  he  suggested,  looking  towards  a  pack  of  cards 
that  stuck  out  of  a  half-opened  drawer. 

"I  have  nothing  in  the  world  that  I  can  call  my  own," 
Captain  Polkington  answered,  without  moving. 

Mr.  Gillat  felt  in  his  own  lean  pockets  surreptitiously. 
"We  might  play  for  paper,"  he  said. 

And  as  she  went  up-stairs  Julia  listened  to  hear  their 
chairs  scroop  on  the  kamptulikon  floor  as  they  drew  them 
to  the  table;  she  was  surprised  not  to  hear  the  sound, 
but  she  imagined  the  game  must  have  been  put  off  a  little 
so  that  her  father  could  talk  over  his  troubles.  Which, 
indeed,  was  the  case,  though  the  magnitude  of  those  trou- 
bles she  did  not  guess. 


CHAPTER,  II 

THE  DEBT 

VIOLET'S  engagement  was  an  accepted  fact.  Mr. 
Frazer  came  to  see  the  Captain,  who  received  him  in  the 
dining-room — the  combined  ingenuity  of  the  family  could 
not  make  the  down-stairs  room  presentable.  The  inter- 
view was  short,  but  satisfactory;  so  also  was  the  one 
with  Mrs.  Polkington  which  followed ;  with  Violet  it  was 
longer,  but,  no  doubt,  equally  satisfactory.  Lunch,  too, 
was  all  that  could  be  desired.  Mrs.  Polkington's  man- 
ners were  always  gracious,  and  to-day  she  had  a  charming 
air  of  taking  Richard  into  the  family — after  having  shut 
all  the  doors,  actual  and  metaphorical,  which  led  to  any- 
thing real  and  personal.  The  Captain  was  rather  twittery 
at  lunch,  at  times  inclined  to  talk  too  much,  at  times  heav- 
ily silent  and  always  obviously  submissive  to  his  wife. 
Yesterday's  excitement  was  not  enough  to  account  for 
this  in  Julia's  opinion.  "He  has  been  doing  something," 
she  decided,  and  wondered  what 

Mrs.  Polkington  and  her  daughters  all  went  out  that 
afternoon;  Julia,  however,  returned  at  about  dusk.  As 
the  others  had  no  intention  of  coming  back  so  soon,  there 
was  no  drawing-room  tea;  a  much  simpler  meal  was 
spread  in  the  dining-room.  Julia  and  her  father  had 
only  just  sat  down  to  it  when  they  heard  Johnny  Gillat's 
knock  at  the  front  door,  followed  a  minute  afterwards  by 
Mr.  Gillat  himself ;  but  when  he  saw  that  the  Captain  was 

12 


THE    DEBT  13 

not  alone,  he  stopped  on  the  threshold ;  Juna  s  presence, 
contrary  to  custom,  seemed  to  discompose  him.  He,  then, 
was  in  her  father's  secret,  whatever  it  might  be;  she 
guessed  as  much  when  she  saw  his  perturbed  pink  face. 
However,  she  did  not  say  anything,  only  invited  Mr.  Gil- 
lat  to  have  some  tea. 

Johnny  sat  down,  and  put  a  small  and  rather  badly 
tied  parcel  beside  him ;  next  minute  he  picked  it  up  again, 
and  began  surreptitiously  to  put  it  into  first  one  pocket 
and  then  another.  It  was  rather  a  tight  fit,  and  in  his 
efforts  to  do  it  unobtrusively,  he  made  some  disturbance, 
but  no  one  remarked  on  it;  Captain  Polkington  because 
he  was  too  despondent,  Julia  because  it  did  not  seem 
worth  while.  Conversation  languished;  Julia  did  what 
she  could,  but  her  father  answered  in  monosyllables,  and 
Mr.  Gillat  said,  "Very  true,"  or  "Ah,  yes,  yes,"  eating 
slice  after  slice  of  thick  bread  and  butter,  and  filling  his 
mouth  very  full  as  if  to  cork  it  up  and  so  prevent  his  hav- 
ing to  answer  awkward  questions. 

At  last  Captain  Polkington  rose ;  "Gillat,"  he  said,  "if 
you  have  finished,  we  may  as  well  go  down-stairs." 

Johnny  set  down  his  half-finished  cup  of  tea  with  alac- 
rity, and  with  alacrity  followed  the  Captain.  But  Julia 
followed  too;  Johnny  turned  uneasily  as  he  heard  her 
step  behind  him  on  the  dark  stairs ;  doubtless,  so  he  told 
himself,  she  was  going  to  the  kitchen.  She  was  not,  how- 
ever; on  the  contrary,  she  showed  every  sign  of  accom- 
panying them  to  the  little  room  behind. 

"Do  you  want  anything,  Julia?"  her  father  asked,  turn- 
ing about  in  the  doorwoy ;  "I'm  busy  to-night — I  wish  you 
would  go  away." 

The  sentence  began  with  dignity,  but  ended  with  quer- 
ulousness.  But  Julia  was  not  affected ;  she  came  into  the 
room.  "I  want  to  talk  to  you,"  she  said,  closing  the  door. 


H  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"You  had  much  better  tell  me  about  it,  you  will  be  found 
out,  you  know;  mother  would  have  guessed  there  was 
something  wrong  to-day  if  she  had  not  been  so  busy 
with  Mr.  Frazer." 

"Found  out  in  what?"  the  Captain  demanded;  "I 
should  like  to  know  of  what  you  accuse  me — you,  my 
own  daughter — this  is  much,  indeed." 

He  paced  the  hearthrug  with  outraged  dignity,  but 
Julia  only  drew  one  of  the  horse-hair  chairs  to  the  table. 
"You  would  do  better  to  tell  me,"  she  said ;  "I  might  be 
able  to  help  you — Johnny,  won't  you  sit  down?" 

Johnny  took  the  cane  deck-chair,  sitting  down  nerv- 
ously and  so  near  the  edge  that  the  old  chair  creaked 
ominously.  Captain  Polkington  paced  the  rug  once  or 
twice  more,  then  he  sat  down  opposite,  giving  up  all  pre- 
tence of  dignity. 

"It  is  money,  of  course,"  Julia  went  on ;  "I  suppose  you 
lost  at  the  races  yesterday — how  much  ?" 

The  Captain  did  not  answer,  he  seemed  overwhelmed 
by  his  troubles.  "How  much?"  Julia  repeated,  turning 
to  Mr.  Gillat. 

"It  was  rather  much,"  that  gentleman  answered  apolo- 
getically. 

Julia  looked  puzzled.  "How  could  he  have  much  to 
lose?"  she  asked.  "You  couldn't,  you  know,"  bending 
her  brows  as  she  looked  at  her  father — "unless  you  bor- 
rowed— did  you  borrow?" 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  rather  eagerly ;  "I  borrowed — that 
was  it ;  of  course  I  was  going  to  pay  back — I  am  going 
to  pay  back." 

"From  whom  did  you  borrow?"  Another  pause,  and 
the  question  again,  then  the  Captain  explained  confus- 
edly :  "The  cheque — it  came  a  day  early — I  merely  meant 
to  make  use  of  it  for  the  day " 


THE    DEBT  15 

"The  cheque!"  Julia  repeated,  with  dawning  compre- 
hension. "The  cheque  from  Slade  &  Slade  that  mother 
was  speaking  of  this  morning.  Our  cheque,  the  money 
we  have  to  live  on  for  the  next  three  months  ?" 

"My  cheque,"  her  father  said,  with  one  last  effort  at 
dignity ;  "made  out  to  me — my  income  that  I  have  a  per- 
fect right  to  spend  as  I  like ;  I  used  my  own  money  for  my 
own  purposes." 

He  forgot  that  a  moment  back  he  had  excused  the 
act  as  a  borrowing;  Julia  did  not  remind  him,  she  was 
too  much  concerned  with  the  facts  to  trouble  about  mere 
turns  of  speech.  They,  like  words  and  motives,  had 
not  heretofore  entered  much  into  her  considerations ;  con- 
sequences were  what  was  really  important  to  her — how 
the  bad  might  be  averted,  how  the  good  drawn  that  way, 
and  all  used  to  the  best  advantage.  This  point  of  view, 
though  it  leaves  a  great  deal  to  de  desired,  has  one  advan- 
tage— those  who  take  it  waste  no  time  in  lamentation 
or  reproof.  For  that  reason  they  are  perhaps  some  of  the 
least  unpleasant  people  to  confess  to. 

Julia  wasted  no  words  now ;  she  sat  for  a  brief  minute, 
stunned  by  the  magnitude  of  the  calamity  which  had  de- 
prived them  of  the  largest  part  of  their  income  for  the 
next  three  months ;  then  she  began  to  look  round  in  her 
mind  to  see  what  might  be  done.  Captain  Polkington 
offered  a  few  not  very  coherent  explanations  and  excuses, 
to  which  she  did  not  listen,  and  then  relapsed  into  silence. 
Johnny  sat  opposite,  rubbing  his  hands  in  nervous  sym- 
pathy, and  looking  from  father  to  daughter ;  he  took  the 
silence  of  the  one  to  be  as  hopeless  as  that  of  the  other. 

"We  thought,"  he  ventured  at  last,  tugging  at  the 
parcel  now  firmly  wedged  in  his  pocket.  "We  hoped, 
that  is,  we  thought  perhaps  we  might  raise  a  trifle,  it 
wouldn't  be  much  help " 


16  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

But  neither  of  the  others  were  listening  to  him,  and 
Captain  Polkington  interrupted  with  his  own  remedy, 
"We  shall  have  to  manage  on  credit,"  he  said;  "we  can 
get  credit  for  this  three  months." 

"We  can't,"  Julia  assured  him;  "the  greater  part  of 
that  money  was  to  have  paid  outstanding  bills ;  we  can't 
live  on  credit,  because  we  haven't  got  any  to  live  on." 

"That's  nonsense,"  her  father  said;  "it  can  be  done 
with  care  and  economy,  and  retrenchments." 

Julia  did  not  answer,  so  Johnny  took  up  the  words. 
"Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  "one  can  always  retrench ;  it  is  really 
marvellous  how  little  one  can  do  with,  in  fact  one  is  bet- 
ter for  it;  I  feel  a  different  man  for  having  to  retrench. 
Your  mother's  a  wonderful  woman" — he  stopped,  then 
added  doubtfully  as  he  thought  of  the  lost  apple  tart — "I 
suppose,  though,  she  would  want  to  make  a  good  appear- 
ance just  now,  with  the  engagement,  Mr.  Frazer  in  and 
out.  It  is  very  unfortunate,  very." 

By  this  time  he  had  untied  his  parcel,  and  flattening 
the  paper  on  his  knees  began  to  put  the  contents  on  the 
table.  There  were  some  field-glasses,  a  breast  pin,  and 
a  few  other  such  things ;  when  he  had  put  them  all  out  he 
felt  in  his  waistcoat-pocket  for  his  watch. 

"They  would  fetch  a  trifle,"  he  said,  regarding  the  row 
a  little  proudly. 

"Those?"  Julia  asked,  puzzled. 

"Yes,"  Mr.  Gillat  said;  "not  a  great  deal,  of  course, 
but  it  would  be  a  help — it  might  pay  the  butcher's  bill. 
It's  a  great  thing  to  have  the  butcher's  bill  paid;  I've 
heard  my  landlady  say  so;  it  gives  a  standing  with  the 
other  tradespeople,  and  that's  what  you  want — she  often 
says  so." 

"You  mean  you  think  of  selling  them  for  us?"  Julia 
asked,  fixing  her  keen  eyes  on  Johnny,  so  that  he  felt 


THE    DEBT  17 

very  guilty,  and  as  if  he  ought  to  excuse  himself.  But 
before  he  could  do  it  she  had  swept  his  belongings  to- 
gether. "You  won't  do  anything  of  the  kind,"  she  said. 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  we  won't  have  it.    Pack  them  up." 

"Oh,  but,"  Johnny  protested,  "it  would  be  a  little  help, 
it  would  indeed ;  they  would  fetch  something,  the  glasses 
are  good  ones,  though  a  bit  old-fashioned,  and  the 
watch " 

"I  don't  care,  I  won't  have  it,"  and  Julia  took  the  mat- 
ter into  her  own  hands,  and  began  with  a  flushed  face  to 
re-pack  the  things  herself. 

"Is  it  that  you  think  I  can't  spare  them  ?"  Gillat  asked, 
still  bewildered.  "I  can — what  an  idea,"  he  laughed. 
"What  do  I  want  with  field-glasses,  now?  And  as  to  a 
watch,  my  time's  nothing  to  me !" 

"No,  I  dare  say  not,"  Julia  said,  but  she  tied  the  parcel 
firmly,  then  she  gave  it  to  him.  "Take  it  away,"  she  said, 
"and  don't  try  to  sell  a  thing." 

She  opened  the  door  as  she  spoke,  and  he,  accepting  it 
as  a  hint  of  dismissal,  meekly  followed  her  from  the 
room.  When  they  had  reached  the  hall  above  he  ven- 
tured on  a  last  protest.  "Why  may  I  not  sell  anything  ?" 
he  asked. 

"Because  we  have  not  quite  come  to  that,"  she  said, 
with  a  ring  of  bitterness  in  her  voice:  "We  have  come 
pretty  low,  I  know,  with  our  dodges  and  our  shifts,  but 
we  haven't  quite  come  to  depriving  you.  Johnny" — and 
she  stretched  out  a  hand  to  him,  a  thing  which  was  rare, 
for  no  one  thought  it  necessary  to  shake  hands  with  Mr. 
Gillat — "it's  very  good  of  you  to  offer;  I'm  grateful  to 
you;  I'm  awfully  glad  you  did  it;  you  made  me 
ashamed." 

Johnny  looked  at  her  perplexed ;  the  note  of  bitterness 


i8  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

in  her  voice  had  deepened  to  something  more  he  was 
altogether  at  a  loss  to  understand.  But  she  gave  him  no 
opportunity  for  inquiry,  for  she  opened  the  street  door. 

"Good-bye,"  she  said,  her  usual  self  again,  "and  don't 
you  let  me  catch  you  selling  those  things." 

"Oh,  I  say !    But  how  will  you  manage  ?"  he  protested. 

"Somehow;  I  have  got  several  ideas  already;  I'm  bet- 
ter at  this  sort  of  game  than  you  are,  you  know." 

And  she  shut  the  door  upon  him ;  then  she  went  back  to 
Captain  Polkington. 

"Father,"  he  said,  "would  you  mind  telling  me  if  you 
have  borrowed  any  other  money?  It  would  be  much 
simpler  if  we  knew  just  how  we  stood." 

The  Captain  seemed  to  have  a  painfully  clear  idea  of 
how  he  stood.  "Your  mother,"  he  remarked,  with  appar- 
ent irrelevance,  "is  such  an  unreasonable  woman;  if  she 
were  like  you — if  she  saw  things  sensibly.  But  she 
won't,  she'll  make  a  fuss;  she  will  entirely  overlook  the 
fact  that  it  is  my  own  money  that  I  have  lost." 

"I  am  afraid  she  will,"  Julia  agreed.  "Will  you  tell 
me  if  you  lost  any  one  else's  money  as  well  ?" 

"Oh,  a  trifle,"  the  Captain  said;  "nothing  to  speak  of 
yesterday;  I  have  borrov/ed  a  little  now  and  again,  at 
cards  and  so  on ;  a  trifling  accommodation." 

"From  whom?" 

"Rawson-Clew." 

Julia  nodded;  this  was  bad,  but  it  might  have  been 
worse.  Mr.  Rawson-Clew  was  not  a  personal  friend  of 
the  Polkingtons,  and  he  was  not  a  man  in  an  inferior 
position  who  might  presume  upon  his  loan  to  the  Captain 
to  establish  a  friendly  footing.  On  the  contrary,  he  was 
in  a  superior  position,  so  much  so  that  for  a  moment 
Julia  was  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  he  came  to  accom- 
modate her  father.  Then  she  recalled  his  face — he  had 


THE    DEBT  19 

been  pointe3  out  to  her — he  looked  a  good-natured  fool ; 
probably  he  had  met  the  Captain  somewhere  and  been 
sorry  for  him,  or  perhaps  he  did  not  like  to  say  "no." 
In  any  case  he  had  lent  the  money  and,  so  Julia  fancied, 
would  have  to  wait  a  very  long  time  before  he  saw  it 
again.  She  dismissed  the  young  man  from  her  mind 
and  fell  to  working  out  plans  to  meet  the  more  pressing 
difficulties. 

The  relations  would  have  to  help;  not  with  money; 
they  would  not  do  that  to  a  useful  extent,  but  with  in- 
vitations. Cherie  was  easily  provided  for;  Aunt  Louise 
had  before  offered  to  take  her  abroad  for  the  winter; 
Cherie  did  not  in  the  least  want  to  go;  it  was  likely  to 
be  nothing  nicer  than  acting  as  unpaid  companion  to  a 
fidgety  old  lady;  but  under  the  present  circumstances 
she  would  have  to  go.  For  Violet  it  was  not  quite  so 
easy;  it  would  look  rather  odd  for  her  to  go  visiting 
among  obliging  relatives,  seeing  that  she  was  only  just 
engaged — how  things  looked  was  a  point  the  Polkingtons 
always  considered.  But  it  would  have  to  be  managed; 
Julia  fancied  something  might  be  arranged  at  Bath,  a 
place  which  was  a  cheap  fare  from  Marbridge.  Mrs. 
Polkington  would  probably  go  somewhere  for  part  of  the 
time,  then  there  could  be  some  real  retrenchments  not 
otherwise  possible.  Mary  might  be  dismissed;  Mr.  Gil- 
lat  even  might  come  to  board  with  them  for  a  little;  the 
outside  world  need  not  know  he  was  a  guest  that  paid. 

Julia  was  not  satisfied  with  these  plans;  they  would 
barely  meet  the  difficulty  she  knew,  even  with  credit 
stretched  to  the  uttermost  and  the  household  crippled 
for  some  time ;  but  she  could  think  of  nothing  better,  and 
determined  to  suggest  them  to  Mrs.  Polkington.  With 
these  thoughts  in  her  mind,  she  went  up-stairs;  as  she 
passed  the  drawing-room,  she  noticed  that  the  blinds  had 


20  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

not  been  pulled  down ;  she  went  to  the  window  to  remedy 
the  omission,  and  so  saw  in  the  street  below  the  young 
man  who,  with  the  debt  owing  to  him,  she  had  lately  dis- 
missed from  her  mind.  There  was  a  street  lamp  directly 
below  the  window,  and  she  stood  a  moment  by  the  cur- 
tain looking  down.  Mr.  Rawson-Clew  was  riding  past, 
but  slowly;  it  was  quite  possible  to  see  his  face,  which 
did  not  contradict  her  former  opinion — good-natured  but 
foolish,  and  possibly  weak.  He  turned  in  his  saddle  just 
below  the  window  to  speak  to  his  companion,  and  she  no- 
ticed that  it  was  a  stranger  with  him,  a  man  wearing  a 
single  eyeglass,  ten  years  older  than  the  other,  and  of  a 
totally  different  stamp.  Indeed,  of  a  stamp  differing 
from  any  she  had  seen  at  Marbridge,  so  much  so  that 
she  wondered  how  he  came  to  be  here,  and  what  he  was 
doing.  But  this  was  rather  a  waste  of  time,  for  the  next 
day  she  knew. 

The  next  day  he  came  down  the  street  again,  but  this 
time  alone  and  on  foot.  He  stopped  at  No.  27,  and  there 
asked  for  Captain  Polkington.  Julia,  hearing  the  knock, 
and  the  visitor  subsequently  being  ushered  into  the  din- 
ing-room, guessed  it  must  be  Mr.  Gillat,  perhaps  come 
with  his  parcel  again ;  when  she  saw  Mary  she  asked  her. 

"No,  miss,"  was  the  answer ;  "it's  another  gentleman  to 
see  the  master." 

"Who?"  Julia's  mind  was  alert  for  fresh  difficulties. 

"Mr.  Rawson-Clew. 

"I  don't  know  who  he  is,"  Mary  went  on ;  "I've  never 
set  eyes  on  him  before,  but  he's  a  grand  sort  of  gentle- 
man; I  hardly  liked  to  put  him  in  the  dining-room,  only 
missis's  orders  was  'Mr.  Gillat  or  any  gentleman  to  see 
the  master  there/  " 

Which  was  true  enough,  and  might  reasonably  have 


THE    DEBT  21 

been  reckoned  a  safe  order,  for  no  one  but  Mr.  Gillat 
ever  did  come  to  see  the  Captain. 

"I  hope  I've  done  right,"  Mary  said. 

"Quite  right,"  Julia  answered,  though  she  did  not  feel 
so  sure  of  it.  The  name  and  the  vague  description  of  the 
visitor  somehow  suggested  to  her  mind  the  stranger  who 
had  ridden  past  with  young  Mr.  Rawson-Clew.  She 
went  up-stairs,  uneasy  as  much  from  intuition  as  from 
experience.  In  the  hall  she  stood  a  minute.  The  dining- 
room  door  did  not  shut  too  well,  the  lock  was  old  and 
worn,  and  unless  it  was  fastened  carefully,  it  came  open ; 
the  Captain  never  managed  to  fasten  it,  and  now  it  stood 
ajar ;  Julia  could  hear  something  of  what  was  said  within 
almost  as  soon  as  she  reached  the  top  of  the  kitchen  stairs. 
The  visitor  spoke  quietly,  his  words  were  not  audible,  but 
the  Captain's  voice  was  raised  with  excitement. 

"The  money,  sir,  the  money  that  your  cousin  lent — 
accommodation  between  gentlemen " 

So  Julia  heard  incompletely,  and  then  another  dis- 
jointed sentence. 

"Do  you  take  me  for  an  adventurer,  a  sharper?  I  am 
a  soldier,  sir,  a  soldier  and  a  gentleman — at  least,  I  was — 
I  mean  I  was  a  soldier,  I  am  a  gentleman " 

Julia  came  swiftly  up  the  hall,  the  instinct  of  the 
female  to  spread  frail  wings  and  protect  her  helpless  be- 
longings (old  equally  as  much  as  young)  was  strong 
upon  her.  The  pushed  open  the  dining-room  door  and 
walked  in. 

"Father,"  she  said,  "is  anything  the  matter?" 

Both  men  turned,  the  stranger  clearly  surprised  and  an- 
noyed by  the  interruption,  the  Captain  for  a  moment 
thinking  of  pulling  himself  together  and  dismissing  his 
daughter  with  a  lie.  But  he  did  not  do  it;  he  was  too 
shaken  to  think  quickly,  also  there  was  a  sense  of  re- 


22  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

inforcement  in  her  presence;  this  he  did  not  realise;  in- 
deed, he  realised  nothing  except  that  she  spoke  again  be- 
fore he  had  collected  himself. 

"Is  it  about  the  money  Mr.  Rawson-Clew  lent  you?" 
she  asked. 

He  nodded,  and  she  turned  to  the  other  man,  who  had 
risen  on  her  entrance,  and  now  stood  with  his  back  to 
the  evil-smelling  stove  which  Mary  had  lighted  as  usual 
in  honour  of  Captain  Polkington's  visitors.  She  meas- 
ured him  swiftly,  and  no  detail  escaped  her;  the  well- 
bred  impassive  face,  where  the  annoyance  caused  by  her 
entrance  showed  only  in  the  rather  hard  eyes ;  the  straight 
figure,  even  the  perfection  of  his  tailoring  and  the  style 
of  his  boots — she  summed  it  all  up  with  the  rapidity  of 
one  who  has  had  to  depend  on  her  wits  before.  And  her 
wits  were  to  be  depended  on,  for,  in  spite  of  the  warmth 
of  her  protective  anger,  she  felt  his  superiority  of  person, 
position  and  ability,  and,  only  too  probably,  of  cause 
also.  She  could  have  laughed  at  the  contrast  he  pre- 
sented to  her  father  and  herself  and  the  surroundings.  It 
was  perhaps  for  this  reason  that  she  asked  him  mali- 
ciously, "Have  you  come  to  collect  the  debt?" 

The  question  went  home.  "Certainly  not,"  he  an- 
swered haughtily;  "the  money " 

But  the  Captain  prevented  whatever  he  was  going  to 
say.  "He  thinks  I  am  an  adventurer,  a  sharper,"  he 
bleated,  now  thoroughly  throwing  himself  on  his  daugh- 
ter's protection ;  "his  intention  seems  to  be  a  warning  not 
to  try  to  get  anything  more  out  of  his  cousin — something 
of  that  sort." 

Julia  paid  little  attention  to  her  father.  "You  were 
going  to  say,"  she  inquired  serenely  of  Rawson-Clew, 
"something  about  the  money,  I  think?" 

"No,"  he   answered,  with   cold  politeness.     "I   only 


THE    DEBT  23 

meant  to  suggest  that  this  is  perhaps  rather  an  unpleasant 
subject  for  a  lady." 

He  moved  as  if  he  would  open  the  door  for  her,  but 
she  stood  her  ground.  "It  is  unpleasant,"  she  said ;  "for 
that  reason  had  we  not  better  get  it  over  quickly?  You 
have  not  come  to  collect  the  debt,  you  have  come,  then, 
for  what  ?" 

"To  make  one  or  two  things  plain  to  Captain  Polking- 
ton.  I  believe  I  have  succeeded;  if  so,  he  will  no  doubt 
tell  you  anything  you  wish  to  know.  Good  afternoon," 
and  he  moved  to  the  door  on  his  own  account,  where- 
upon Julia's  calmness  gave  way. 

"You  do  think  my  father  an  adventurer,  then?"  she 
said.  "You  think  him  a  sharper  and  your  cousin  a  gull, 
and  you  came  to  warn  him  that  if  he  tried  to  get  any- 
thing more  in  future  it  was  you  with  whom  he  would 
have  to  deal.  And  the  money — you  were  going  to  say 
the  money  was  not  what  you  came  for  because  you  never 
expected  to  see  it  again  ?  But  you  are  wrong  there ;  you 
shall  see  it ;  it  will  be  re-paid,  every  penny  of  it." 

Rawson-Clew  paused  till  she  had  finished;  then,  "I 
am  sorry  for  any  misunderstanding  there  may  have  been," 
he  said.  "I  trust  you  will  trouble  yourself  no  farther  in 
the  matter,"  and  he  opened  the  door. 

It  was  not  a  denial ;  it  was  not,  so  Julia  considered,  even 
an  apology;  to  her  it  seemed  more  like  a  polite  request 
to  mind  her  own  business,  and  she  went  up  to  her  room 
after  he  had  gone  almost  unjustly  angry,  too  angry  for 
the  time  being  to  think  about  the  rashness  of  her  promise 
that  the  debt  should  be  paid. 

"He  thought  us  dirt,"  she  said,  sitting  on  the  end  of 
her  narrow  iron  bed.  Then  she  smiled  rather  grimly. 
"And  we  are  pretty  much  what  he  thought  us !  Father 
sponged  the  money,  and  I  decided  to  myself  that  the  re- 


24  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

paying  did  not  much  matter.  We  are,  as  we  looked  to 
him,  two  grubby  little  people  of  doubtful  honesty,  in  a 
grubby  room  with  Bouquet,"  and  she  laughed  outright, 
although  she  was  alone,  and  the  faculty  for  seeing  and 
deriding  herself  as  others  might,  had  a  somewhat  bitter 
flavour.  Nevertheless,  she  was  very  angry  and  quite  de- 
termined to  pay  the  money  somehow,  so  that  at  least  it 
should  appear  to  this  man  that  he  was  mistaken. 

An  hour  later  she  carried  Captain  Polkington's  tea 
down  to  him ;  when  tea  was  in  the  drawing-room  his  was 
always  sent  to  him  thus.  She  found  him  not  depressed 
at  all,  on  the  contrary  quite  cheerful,  and  even  digni- 
fied. He  was  reading  something  when  she  came  in,  and 
seeing  that  she  was  alone,  he  handed  it  to  her.  It  was 
from  Mr.  Rawson-Clew  she  found,  a  sort  of  recognition 
of  the  discharge  of  the  debt,  or  at  least  a  formal  can- 
celling of  it.  It  was  carefully  and  conclusively  worded, 
certainly  not  the  unaided  work  of  the  young  man  who 
had  ridden  past  last  night.  It  was  dictated  by  the  other, 
she  was  sure  of  it;  possibly  even  he  had  himself  dis- 
charged the  debt  so  as  to  end  the  matter.  Her  eyes 
blazed  as  she  read ;  he  would  not  even  allow  her  the  satis- 
faction of  giving  him  the  lie — and  the  misery  of  straining 
and  pinching  to  do  the  impossible.  From  pride,  or  from 
pity,  or  from  both,  he  had  finished  the  thing  there  and 
then,  or  he  thought  he  had.  She  tore  the  paper  across 
and  then  across  again. 

"What  are  you  doing?"  Captain  Polkington  cried,  seiz- 
ing her  hands  as  she  would  have  torn  it  again.  "Don't 
you  know  it  is  valuable?  I  must  keep  it;  he  can't  go 
back  on  it  if  he  wants  to."  He  took  it  from  her,  and  be- 
gan to  piece  it  together.  "I  can  look  the  world  in  the 
face  again,"  he  said,  admiring  the  fragments.  "I  am 
free,  free  and  cleared ;  that  debt  would  have  hung  like  a 


THE    DEBT  25 

millstone  around  my  neck,  but  I  am  free  of  it;  it  is  can- 
celled." 

"Free!"  Julia  said  with  scorn.  There  are  disadvan- 
tages in  reducing  a  man  to  a  subordinate  position  and 
allowing  him  no  use  for  his  self-respect;  it  is  a  virtue 
that  has  a  tendency  to  atrophy.  Julia  recognised  this 
with  something  like  personal  shame.  "Your  debt  is  dis- 
charged," she  said  gently,  "but  mine  is  not;  it  has  been 
shifted,  not  cancelled;  it  lies  with  me  and  Mr.  Rawson- 
Clew  now,  and  it  shall  be  paid  somehow." 

Captain  Polkington  hardly  heeded  what  she  said;  he 
was  still  smoothing  the  pieces  of  paper.  "What?"  he 
asked,  as  he  put  them  away  in  an  envelope,  but  he  did 
not  wait  for  her  answer.  "It  was  very  heedless  of  you 
to  tear  it,"  he  said ;  "but  fortunately  there  is  no  damage 
done ;  it  is  perfectly  valid,  all  that  can  be  required." 


CHAPTER  III 

NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  AZUREUM 

THE  elite  called  to  congratulate  Mrs.  Polkington  on 
her  daughter's  engagement.  All  manner  of  pleasant 
things  were  said  by  them  and  by  Mrs.  Polkington  in  an 
atmosphere  of  social  sunshine.  She  thought  it  so  nice 
of  them  to  come  so  soon,  she  told  them  so  severally ;  she 
knew  that  they — "you  all,"  "you,  at  least,"  "you,  my  old- 
est friend,"  according  to  circumstances — would  be 
pleased  to  hear  about  it.  She  gave  sundry  little  hints 
of  future  plans  and  hopes,  among  other  things  mentioned 
that  it  really  was  hard  for  poor  Violet  to  have  to  go  and 
cheer  an  invalid  cousin  just  now. 

"And  the  worst  of  it  is,"  so  Mrs.  Polkington  said, 
"she  may  have  to  be  away  some  time.  There  really  seems 
no  one  else  to  go,  and  one  could  not  leave  the  poor  dear 
alone  at  this  dull  time  of  the  year;  and,  after  all,  Bath 
is  not  very  far  off;  some  of  Richard's  people  live  there, 
too.  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  the  young  people  con- 
trive to  see  a  good  deal  of  each  other  in  spite  of  every- 
thing. Indeed,  had  I  not  thought  so,  I  think  I  should 
have  insisted  on  Cherie's  going  instead  of  Violet,  al- 
though she  would  have  had  to  give  up  her  winter 
abroad." 

Here  the  visitor  usually  made  polite  inquiries  about 
this  same  winter  abroad,  and  heard  of  a  delightful  pros- 
pect of  several  months  to  be  spent  in  the  south  of  France, 
unnecessary  and  unpleasant  details  all  omitted. 

26 


NARCISSUS    TRIANDRUS    AZUREUM     27 

"You  do  agree  with  me  ?"  Mrs.  Polkington  would  then 
ask  rather  anxiously,  as  if  her  hearer's  opinion  was  the 
one  that  really  mattered  to  her.  "You  do  think  it  wrong 
to  allow  Cherie  to  refuse  this  invitation  for  Violet's  sake  ? 
I  am  very  glad  you  think  so.  I  had  quite  a  difficulty  in 
persuading  her ;  but,  as  I  told  her,  it  was  not  a  chance  she 
was  likely  to  have  again.  So  she  is  going,  and  Violet 
will  have  to  spend  her  winter  in  Bath.  Julia  ?  Oh,  Julia 
was  not  asked  in  either  case ;  she  will  be  staying  at  home 
with  me." 

From  all  of  which  it  is  clear  that  part  of  Julia's  plan 
was  to  be  adopted.  The  other  part  must  have  found 
favour,  too,  for  soon  it  became  known  that  the  Polking- 
tons  were  without  a  servant.  Mrs.  Polkington  made  in- 
quiries among  her  friends,  but  coud  not  hear  of  any 
one  suitable;  she  said  it  was  very  tiresome,  especially 
as  they  had  taken  advantage  of  the  girl's  empty  room 
to  invite  an  old  Anglo-Indian  friend  of  her  husband's  to 
stay. 

Thus  was  the  difficulty  tided  over,  and  with  so  good  a 
face  that  few  in  Marbridge  had  any  idea  that  it  existed. 
Certainly  none  knew  of  the  pinching  and  screwing  and 
retrenching  which  went  on  indoors  at  No.  27.  One  or 
two  tradesmen  could  have  told  of  long  accounts  unpaid, 
and  some  relations  living  at  a  distance  were  troubled  by 
appeak  for  help,  a  form  of  begging  which,  at  this  date 
of  their  history  did  not  hurt  the  Polkingtons'  sensibility 
much. 

Mrs.  Polkington  suffered  in  body,  if  not  in  mind,  dur- 
ing this  hard  time,  though  fortunately  she  was  able  to 
be  away  a  month.  The  Captain  suffered  a  good  deal 
more,  which  was  perhaps  only  just;  and  Johnny  Gillat 
suffered  with  him,  which  was  not  just,  though  that  did 
not  seem  to  occur  to  him.  As  for  Julia,  she  minded 


28  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

least  of  any  one,  though  in  some  ways  she  had  the  most 
to  put  up  with ;  but  the  plan  was  hers,  and  consequently 
she  was  too  interested  in  its  success  to  trouble  about  the 
inevitable  discomforts  of  the  working  out. 

There  was  one  matter  which  did  trouble  her,  however 
— the  debt  to  Rawson-Clew.  She  had  no  money,  and  no 
possibility  of  raising  any ;  yet  it  must  and  should  be  paid, 
for  her  father's  name  could  not  otherwise  be  cleared.  She 
turned  over  in  her  own  mind  how  she  could  earn  enough, 
but  there  was  little  hope  of  that ;  it  seemed  rather  a  large 
sum  for  a  girl  to  earn,  and  any  sum  was  impossible  to 
her;  she  had  no  gifts  to  take  to  market,  no  ability  for 
any  of  the  arts,  not  enough  education  for  teaching,  no 
training  for  commerce.  The  only  field  open  to  her  was 
that  of  a  nursery-governess  or  companion;  neither  was 
likely  to  enable  her  to  pay  this  debt  of  honour  quickly, 
Once,  nearly  a  year  ago,  she  had  had  a  sort  of  half-offer 
of  the  post  of  companion.  It  was  while  she  was  staying 
with  a  friend;  during  the  visit  there  had  come  to  the 
house  an  old  Dutchman  of  the  name  of  Van  Heigen,  a 
business  acquaintance  of  her  host.  He  had  stayed  nearly 
a  week,  and  in  that  time  taken  a  great  fancy  to  her. 

In  those  first  bad  days  after  the  Captain's  leaving  the 
army,  the  Polkingtons  had  lived,  or  perhaps  more  accur- 
ately, drifted  about,  a  good  deal  abroad.  It  was  then 
that  Julia  picked  up  her  only  accomplishment,  a  working 
knowledge  of  several  languages.  She  had  also  acquired 
one  other  thing,  perhaps  not  an  accomplishment,  a  rather 
unusual  knowledge  of  divers  men  and  divers  ways.  It 
may  have  been  that  these  qualities  made  her  more  attract- 
ive to  the  old  Dutchman  than  the  purely  English  game- 
expert  daughters  of  the  house.  Or  it  may  have  been  her 
admirable  cooking;  the  cook  was  ill  during  the  greater 
part  of  her  visit,  and  her  offer  to  help  was  gladly  ac- 


NARCISSUS    TRIANDRUS    AZUREUM     29 

cepted  and  duly  appreciated.  Something,  at  all  events, 
pleased  the  old  man,  so  that  before  he  left  he  asked  her, 
half  in  fun,  if  she  would  come  and  live  with  his  wife. 
This  lady,  it  seemed,  had  bad  health,  and  no  daughters; 
she  always  had  a  companion  of  some  sort,  and  was  never 
satisfied  with  the  one  she  had.  In  Holland,  as  in  Eng- 
land, it  seemed  posts  were  not  easy  to  fill  satisfactorily, 
for  those  often  in  want  of  employment  were  also  con- 
stitutionally inefficient. 

At  the  time  Julia  had  laughingly  refused  the  offer, 
now  she  recalled  it,  and  thought  seriously  about  it.  It 
would  not  be  very  nice,  a  mixture  of  upper  servant  and 
lady  help ;  the  Van  Heigens  were  bulb  growers,  old-fash- 
ioned people,  the  lady  a  thorough  huisvrouw,  nothing 
more  probably.  Still  that  did  not  matter;  such  things 
need  not  be  considered  if  the  end  could  be  attained  that 
way.  But  unfortunately  it  did  not  look  very  likely;  the 
Van  Heigens  would  pay  less  to  a  companion  than  Eng- 
lish people  would,  not  enough  to  buy  clothes;  there  was 
practically  nothing  to  be  made  out  of  it.  Julia  was 
obliged  to  admit  the  fact  to  herself,  and  reluctantly  to 
dismiss  the  Dutchman  and  his  offer  from  her  thoughts. 

But  curiously  enough,  they  were  brought  to  her  mind 
again  before  long;  not  later,  indeed,  than  that  evening, 
when  she  went  to  a  dance  at  a  neighbour's  house.  At 
this  dance  she  met  a  Mr.  Alexander  Cross.  He  was  not 
a  native  of  Marbridge,  not  at  all  like  any  of  them ;  it  is 
quite  possible  that  they  would  have  rather  looked  down 
upon  him;  Julia  recognised  that  he  barely  came  up  to 
her  mother's  standard  of  a  gentleman.  He  seemed  to  be 
a  keen  business  man  of  the  energetic  new  sort;  he  also 
seemed  to  deal  in  most  things,  flowers  among  them.  He 
told  Julia  something  about  that  part  of  his  business,  for 
he  and  it  interested  her  so  much  that  she  asked  him  lead- 


30  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

ing  questions.  He  explained  how  the  beautiful  orchid 
he  wore  in  his  coat  had  decreased  in  value  lately.  A  few 
years  ago,  when  there  had  been  but  one  specimen  with 
just  that  marking  in  all  the  world,  the  plant  had  sold 
for  £900;  now  that  it  had  been  multiplied  it  was  worth 
only  £25,  nothing  practically. 

"It  was  a  novelty  then,"  he  explained ;  "some  novelties 
are  worth  a  great  deal.  There's  one  I  know  of  now  I 
could  do  some  good  business  with  if  I  could  get  hold  of 
it.  But  I  can't ;  the  old  fool  that's  got  it  won't  sell  it  for 
any  price,  and  he  can't  half  work  it  himself.  It's  a  blue 
daffodil — Narcissus  Triandrus  Azureum  he  calls  it;  or 
rather,  to  give  it  its  full  title,  Narcissus  Triandrus 
Azureum  Vrouw  Van  Heigen;  so  called,  I  believe,  in 
honour  of  his  wife,  or  his  mother." 

Julia  wondered  if  the  Van  Heigen  who  owned  the 
precious  flower  was  the  old  Dutchman  of  her  acquain- 
tance. "Is  he  a  bulb  grower?"  she  asked,  though  with- 
out giving  any  reason  for  her  question. 

"Yes,"  Cross  answered,  "a  Dutch  bulb  grower;  that's 
why  he  won't  make  the  profit  he  might;  he  comes  of 
generations  of  growers,  and  they  venerate  their  bulbs. 
He  has  cranky  notions  of  how  things  ought  to  be  done, 
and  no  other  way  will  do  for  him." 

"How  did  he  get  a  blue  daffodil?  Do  you  think  it  is 
real  ?  It  seems  very  unusual." 

"It  is  unusual;  that's  where  the  value  comes  in;  but 
it's  real  fast  enough,  though  I  don't  believe  he  grew  the 
first,  as  he  says,  in  his  own  garden.  It's  my  opinion  that 
one  of  his  collectors  sent  him  the  first  bulb;  he  has  col- 
lectors all  over  the  world,  you  know,  looking  for  new 
things." 

"What  is  he  going  to  do  with  it  ?"  Julia  asked. 

"He  is  multiplying  it  at  present;  at  first  he  had  only 


NARCISSUS    TRIANDRUS    AZUREUM     31 

one,  now,  of  course,  he  has  a  few  more;  when  he  has 
got  enough  he  will  hybridise.  You  don't  know  what 
that  is.  Cross-breed  with  it;  use  the  blue  with  the  old 
yellow  daffodil  as  parents  to  new  varieties.  That's  tick- 
lish work;  growers  can't  afford  to  do  it  till  they  have 
a  fair  number  of  the  new  sort ;  but,  of  course,  they  occa- 
sionally get  something  good  that  way." 

Julia  listened,  much  interested,  though,  to  tell  the  truth, 
the  money  value  of  the  thing  fascinated  her  more  than 
anything  else. 

"Will  he  never  sell  any  of  his  blue  bulbs  ?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  yes,  in  time,"  Cross  answered;  "but  not  while 
they  are  worth  anything  much  to  the  growers." 

"What  are  they  worth?  I  mean,  what  would  it  be 
worth  if  there  was  only  one?" 

"I  don't  know ;  I  dare  say  I  could  get  £400  for  the  sin- 
gle bulb." 

"But  if  there  were  more  they  would  not  be  worth  so 
much?  If  there  were  five,  what  would  they  be  worth?" 

"Pretty  well  as  much,  very  likely  £300  for  one  bulb. 
Van  Heigen  would  give  a  written  guarantee  with  it  not 
to  sell  another  bulb  to  another  grower." 

"But  he  could  keep  the  others  himself?"  Julia  asked. 
"That  would  be  eating  his  cake  and  having  it  too.  Tell 
me,"  she  said,  feeling  she  was  imitating  the  Patriarch 
when  he  was  pleading  for  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  "if 
there  were  ten  bulbs,  what  could  you  get  for  one," 

Cross  was  amused  by  her  interest.  "A  hundred  pounds, 
I  dare  say,"  he  said ;  "but  I  shall  never  have  the  chance. 
The  trade  will  never  touch  those  blue  daffodils  while 
they  are  worth  having.  When  the  old  man  does  begin 
to  sell  them — when  they  are  worth  very  little  to  the 
growers — he  will  sell  to  collectors,  cranky  old  connois- 
seurs, from  choice.  That's  what  I  mean  when  I  say  he 


32  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

doesn't  understand  business  as  business ;  he  would  rather 
sell  his  precious  blue  daffodils  where  they  were  what  he 
calls  'appreciated.'  He  would  sooner  they  went  for  a 
moderate  price  to  people  who  would  worship  them,  than 
make  an  enormous  profit  out  of  them." 

"But  the  connoisseurs  could  sell  them,"  Julia  objected. 
"If  I  were  a  connoisseur  and  bought  one  when  they  were 
for  sale,  I  could  sell  it  to  you  if  I  liked." 

"Yes,  but  you  wouldn't,"  Cross  said;  "if  you  were  a 
connoisseur  you  would  not  dream  of  parting  with  your 
bulb.  You  wouldn't  have  the  slightest  wish  to  make  a 
hundred  per  cent,  on  your  purchase,  or  two  or  three 
hundred  either.  Also  I  shouldn't  buy." 

"Why  not?" 

"I  couldn't  afford  to  have  my  name  mixed  up  with 
the  business." 

Julia  looked  at  him  critically.  "You  could  afford  that 
the  business  should  be  done  without  your  name?"  she 
suggested. 

He  laughed.  "I  could  introduce  the  seller,  did  such 
an  impossible  person  exist,  to  some  one  who  could  buy." 

It  was  Julia's  turn  to  laugh,  that  soundless  laugh  of 
hers  which  gave  the  feeling  of  a  joke  only  half  shared. 
"For  a  consideration,  of  course,"  she  said. 

"Something  would  naturally  stick  to  my  fingers,"  Cross 
answered,  amused  rather  than  offended. 

He  was  a  good  deal  amused  by  his  partner,  finding  her 
more  interesting  than  most  of  the  girls  he  met  that  even- 
ing ;  afterwards  he  forgot  her,  for  two  days  later  he  left 
the  place,  and  thought  no  more  either  about  Miss  Polk- 
ington  or  the  talk  he  had  had  with  her. 

As  for  her,  it  was  not  clear  what  she  thought,  but  the 
next  day  she  wrote  to  London  for  a  second-hand  Dutch 
dictionary,  and  then  went  to  call  at  the  house  with  the 


NARCISSUS    TRIANDRUS    AZUREUM     33 

largest  library  that  she  knew.  When  she  came  away 
from  there  she  carried  with  her  a  book  she  had  borrowed, 
a  Dutch  version  of  Gil  Bias,  which  she  remembered  to 
have  once  seen  tucked  away  in  a  corner.  Shortly  after- 
wards, as  soon  as  the  dictionary  came,  she  set  to  reading 
the  edifying  work,  and  found  it  easier  than  she  expected. 
What  one  learns  from  necessity  in  childhood  stays  in  the 
memory,  and  a  good  knowledge  of  German  and  a  small- 
ish one  of  Dutch  will  carry  one  through  greater  difficul- 
ties than  Gil  Bias. 

Before  her  mother  and  sisters  came  back  to  Marbridge, 
Julia  had  written  to  the  old  Dutchman. 

When  Mrs.  Polkington  heard  Julia  wanted  to  go  to 
Holland  and  live  in  a  Dutch  family  she  was  surprised. 
This  news  was  not  given  to  her  till  the  spring  had  fairly 
set  in,  for  it  was  not  till  then  that  Julia  had  been  able 
to  get  everything  arrranged.  It  is  no  use  telling  people 
your  plans  unless  you  are  quite  sure  of  carrying  them 
out,  and  you  are  never  sure  of  that  long  before  starting ; 
at  least,  that  was  Julia's  opinion.  It  was  also  her  opin- 
ion that  it  was  quite  unnecessary  to  tell  all  details.  She 
said  she  was  tired  of  being  at  Marbridge,  and  wanted  a 
complete  change ;  also  that  when  there  were  three  grown- 
up sisters  at  home  it  seemed  rather  desirable  that  one 
should  go  away,  for  a  time  at  least.  When  Violet  sug- 
gested that  it  was  odd  to  have  chosen  Holland  in  prefer- 
ence to  France  or  Germany,  she  replied  truthfully  that 
the  one  was  possible  to  her,  the  others  were  not. 

Mrs.  Polkington,  who  quite  approved  of  the  plan,  saw 
no  objection  to  Holland,  adding  as  a  recommendation, 
"It  is  so  much  more  original  to  go  there."  She  did  not 
fail  to  remark  on  the  originality  when  she  embroidered 
Julia's  going  to  her  friends  and  acquaintances. 

Captain  Polkington  was  the  only  member  of  the  family 


34  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

who  regretted  this  going.  He  had  always  regarded  Julia 
as  something  between  an  ally  and  a  tolerant  go-between ; 
and  since  she  had  wrung  from  him  the  confession  of  his 
difficulties,  and  helped  in  the  arrangement  of  them,  his 
feeling  for  her  had  leaned  more  and  more  towards  the 
former.  He  had  even  come  to  feel  a  certain  protective- 
ness  in  her  preesnce,  which  made  him  really  sorry  she 
was  going.  Johnny  Gillat  was  sorrier  still. 

Johnny  had  gone  back  to  dismal  lodgings  in  town  now ; 
he  only  heard  of  the  plan  by  letter,  and  the  Captain's 
letters  were  very  prolix,  and  not  informing.  Mr.  Gillat's 
own  letters  were  even  worse,  for  if  they  lacked  the  pro- 
lixity, they  lacked  the  little  information  also.  On  receipt 
of  the  Captain's  information  he  merely  wrote  to  ask 
when  Julia  was  going,  and  what  time  she  would  be  in 
London,  as  he  would  like  to  give  himself  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  her  train. 

He  did  give  himself  that  pleasure;  he  was  at  the  sta- 
tion half  an  hour  and  ten  minutes  before  the  train,  so  as 
to  be  sure  of  being  in  time.  He  was  on  the  platform  when 
the  train  came  in;  Julia  saw  him,  a  rather  ridiculous 
figure,  his  shabby  coat  tremendously  brushed  and  tightly 
buttoned,  a  gay  tie  displayed  to  the  uttermost  to  hide  a 
ragged  shirt  front,  his  round,  pink  face,  with  its  little 
grizzled  moustache,  wearing  a  look  of  melancholy  which 
made  it  appear  more  than  ordinarily  foolish.  He  was 
standing  where  the  part  of  the  train  which  came  from 
Marbridge  could  not  possibly  stop,  much  in  the  way  of 
porters  and  trucks;  Julia  had  to  find  him  and  find  her 
luggage  too,  but  he  seemed  to  think  he  was  of  much 
service.  Julia's  hard  young  heart  smote  her  when  he 
gave  twopence  to  her  porter. 

"Johnny,"  she  said,  as  he  took  her  ticket  on  the  District 
Railway,  "I  am  going  to  pay  for  my  ticket." 


NARCISSUS    TRIANDRUS    AZUREUM     35 

It  was  only  threepence,  but  there  are  people  who  have 
to  consider  the  threepences;  if  Julia  was  one,  she  knew 
that  Mr.  Gillat  was  another,  and  she  had  allowed  for 
this  threepence,  and  he  probably  had  not.  He  demurred, 
but  she  insisted.  "Then  I  won't  let  you  come  with  me ;" 
and  he  gave  way. 

They  were  alone  in  a  compartment,  and  he  shouted 
above  the  rattle  of  the  train  something  about  her  being 
missed  at  Marbridge. 

"Oh,  no,"  she  said,  "mother  and  the  girls  think  it  is  a 
good  thing  I  am  going." 

"Your  father  and  I  will  miss  you,"  Johnny  told  her. 

"You?" 

"Yes ;  I'll  miss  you  very  much — we  both  shall ;  we  shall 
sit  down-stairs,  each  side  of  the  fire-place,  and  think  how 
you  used  to  come  there  sometimes.  And  when  I  wait  in 
the  dining-room  when  your  father's  not  at  home,  I'll  re- 
member how  you  used  to  come  down  there  and  chat.  We 
had  many  a  chat,  didn't  we? — you  and  me,  and  Bouquet 
burning  between  us — there  was  nobody  could  trim  Bou- 
quet like  you.  But  perhaps  you'll  be  back  before  winter 
conies  round  again?" 

"I  don't  know  when  I  shall  be  back,"  was  all  Julia 
could  find  to  say.  The  idea  of  being  missed  like  this 
was  new  and  strange  to  her;  the  Polkingtons'  feelings 
were  so  much  guided  by  what  was  advisable,  or  expedi- 
ent, that  there  was  not  usually  much  room  for  simple 
emotions.  She  felt  somehow  grateful  to  Johnny  for  car- 
ing a  little  that  she  was  going,  though  at  the  same  time 
she  was  unpleasantly  convinced  that  she  did  not  de- 
serve it. 

"It  won't  be  at  all  the  same  at  No.  27,"  Mr.  Gillat  was 
saying.  "Your  mother — she's  a  wonderful  woman,  a 
wonderful  woman,  and  Miss  Violet's  a  fine  girl,  so's  the 


36  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

other,  handsome  both  of  them ;  but  they're  in  the  draw- 
ing-room, you  know,  and  you — you  used  to  come  down- 
stairs." 

It  did  not  sound  very  explicit,  but  Julia  understood 
what  he  meant.  Just  then  the  train  stopped  at  a  station, 
and  other  passengers  got  in,  so  they  had  little  more  talk. 

In  time  they  reached  Mark  Lane,  from  whence  it  is  no 
great  walk  to  the  Tower  Stairs.  There  is  a  cheap  way  of 
going  to  Holland  from  there  for  those  who  do  not  mind 
spending  twenty-four  hours  on  the  journey;  Julia  did 
not  mind.  When  she  and  Johnny  Gillat  arrived  at  the 
Tower  Stairs  they  saw  the  steamer  lying  in  the  river,  a 
small  Dutch  boat,  still  taking  in  cargo  from  loaded  light- 
ers alongside.  A  waterman  put  them  on  board,  or,  rather, 
took  them  to  the  nearest  waiting  lighter,  from  whence 
they  scrambled  on  board,  Mr.  Gillat  very  unhandily.  A 
Dutch  steward  received  them,  and  taking  Johnny  for  a 
father  come  to  see  his  daughter  off,  assured  them  in  bad 
English  that  she  would  be  quite  safe,  and  well  taken 
care  of. 

"She  shall  haf  one  cabin  to  herself,  a  bed  clean.  Yes, 
yes ;  there  is  no  passenger  but  one,  a  Holland  gentleman ; 
he  will  not  speak  with  the  miss,  he  is  friend  of  captain." 

Johnny  nodded  a  great  many  times,  though  he  did  not 
quite  follow  what  was  said.  Then  Julia  told  him  he  had 
better  go,  and  not  keep  the  waterman  any  longer. 

He  agreed,  and  began  fumbling  in  his  pocket,  from 
whence  he  pulled  out  one  of  his  badly-tied  parcels. 

"A  keepsake,"  he  said,  putting  it  into  her  hand ;  then, 
without  waiting  to  say  good-bye,  he  scrambled  over  the 
side  in  such  a  hurry  that  he  as  nearly  as  possible  fell  into 
the  river. 

Julia  ran  to  the  side  in  some  anxiety;  some  one 
shouted,  "Look  out,"  and  some  one  else,  "Hold  up,"  and 


NARCISSUS    TRIANDRUS    AZUREUM     37 

a  third  something  less  complimentary.  Then  a  man  laid 
hold  of  Mr.  Gillat's  legs  and  guided  him  safely  on  to  the 
bobbing  lighter.  There  he  turned  and  waived  his  hat  to 
Julia  before  he  got  into  the  waiting  boat. 

"Good-bye,"  he  called. 

"Good-bye,"  she  answered.    "Oh,  do  be  careful !" 

He  was  not  careful,  but  the  waterman  had  him  now, 
and  took  him  ashore.  She  watched  him,  his  round  face 
was  suffused  with  smiles;  he  waved  his  hat  once  more 
just  as  he  reached  the  stairs.  He  slipped  once  getting 
up  them,  but  he  was  up  now,  and  turned  to  wave  once 
before  he  started  down  the  street. 

It  was  not  till  then  that  Julia  became  aware  of  a  small 
sound  close  at  hand ;  there  was  a  good  deal  of  noise  go- 
ing on,  shouting,  the  rattling  of  cranes,  and  the  thud 
of  shifting  bales,  with  now  and  then  the  hoot  of  a 
steamer  and  the  escape  of  steam,  and  under  all,  the  rest- 
less lapping  of  the  water.  But  through  it  all  she  now 
heard  a  much  smaller  sound  quite  close,  a  regular  tick, 
tick.  She  glanced  at  the  parcel  she  had  forgotten,  then 
in  an  instant,  as  a  sudden  idea  occurred  to  her,  she  had 
the  paper  off.  Yes,  it  was.  It  was  Johnny's  great  old- 
fashioned  gold  watch,  with  the  fetter  chain  dangling  at 
the  end. 

She  stood  quite  still  with  the  thing  in  her  hand,  her 
mouth  set  straight,  and  her  eyes  growing  glitteringly 
bright.  The  round  gilded  face  stared  up  at  her,  remind- 
ing her  in  some  grotesque  way  of  Johnny ;  poor,  generous, 
honest,  foolish  old  Johnny !  She  looked  away  quickly,  a 
sudden  desire  not  to  go  with  this  moon-faced  companion 
took  possession  of  her — a  desire  not  to  go  at  all,  a  horri- 
ble new-born  doubt  about  it. 

But  feelings  for  abstract  right  and  wrong,  like  per- 
sonal likes  and  dislikes,  do  not  grow  strongly  where  ex- 


38  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

pediency  and  advisability  and  advantage  have  to  rule; 
she  was  only  going  to  do  what  she  must  in  Holland ;  the 
debt  must  be  paid,  honour  demanded  no  less;  the  blue 
daffodil  was  the  only  hope  of  paying  it.  She  was  not 
going  to  steal  a  bulb  exactly;  she  was  going  to  get  it 
somehow,  as  a  gift,  perhaps,  opportunity  must  show  how ; 
and  when  it  was  hers,  she  could  do  with  it  as  she  pleased, 
there  was  no  wrong  in  that.  She  must  go ;  she  must  do 
it;  the  thing  was  so  necesary  as  to  be  unavoidable,  and 
not  open  to  question.  She  looked  down,  and  her  eye 
fell  on  the  watch  again;  it  stared  up  at  her  in  the  same 
vacant  way  as  Johnny  had  done  that  day  when  he  wanted 
to  sell  it  and  his  other  things  to  help  them  out  of  their 
justly  earned,  sordid  difficulties.  With  shame  she  had 
prevented  that,  feeling  the  cause  unworthy  of  the  sacri- 
fice. But  this  sacrifice,  for  a  still  more  unworthy  cause, 
she  was  too  late  to  prevent.  Johnny  had  gone.  She 
looked  earnestly  to  see  if  he  was  among  those  who  loit- 
ered about  the  stairs,  or  those  in  the  more  distant  street. 
But  she  could  not  see  him,  he  was  gone  clean  from  sight : 
there  was  only  the  busy,  unfamiliar  life  of  the  river 
around ;  yellow,  sunlit  water ;  the  crowded  craft,  and  the 
great  stately  wonder  of  the  Tower  Bridge  silently  rais- 
ing and  parting  its  solid  roadway  to  let  some  boat  go,  as 
she  would  soon  go  down  to  the  sea. 


CHAPTER  rv; 

THE  OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL 

VROUW  SNIEDER,  the  notary's  wife,  sat  by  her  window 
at  work  on  a  long  strip  of  red  crochet  lace.  From  her 
place  she  could  see  all  who  came  up  the  street,  and,  there 
being  a  piece  of  looking-glass  set  outside,  at  right  angles 
to  the  pane,  also  most  who  came  down  it.  This,  though 
doubtless  very  informing,  did  not  help  the  progress  of  the 
lace;  but  that  was  of  no  consequence,  Mevrouw  always 
had  some  red  lace  in  making,  and  it  might  as  well  be 
one  piece  as  another.  With  her,  were  her  two  daughters, 
Denah  and  Anna,  though  Anna  had  no  business  there, 
being  supposed  just  then  to  be  preparing  vegetables  for 
dinner.  She  had  only  come  into  the  room  to  fetch  keys, 
but  a  remark  from  her  mother  brought  her  to  the  window. 

"There  goes  Vrouw  Van  Heigen's  English  miss,"  the 
old  lady  said,  and  both  her  daughters  looked  at  once. 

"She  has  been  marketing,  I  see;  she  seems  a  good 
housewife." 

"She  walks  in  the  road,"  Denah  observed  critically; 
"It  is  so  conspicuous,  I  could  not  do  it;  besides,  one 
might  be  run  over." 

"The  English  always  walk  in  the  road,"  her  sister 
answered;  "they  think  everything  will  get  out  of  their 
way,  and  they  do  not  at  all  mind  being  conspicuous." 

"The  English  miss  should  mind,"  Denah  said,  "for  she 
is  not  pretty ;  no  one  looks  at  her  to  admire ;  besides  she 
is  poor  and  has  to  work  hard." 

39 


40  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Yes,  yes,"  her  mother  agreed  placidly ;  "she  is  a  fine 
worker.  Vrouw  Van  Heigen  is  full  of  her  praises ;  such 
a  cook — she  has  twenty  new  dishes,  and  everything  is 
done  quickly,  one  cannot  tell  how;  it  is  like  having  a 
magician  in  the  house,  so  she  says.  Ah,  there  is  Herr 
Van  de  Greutz's  Marthe  going  into  the  apothecary's.  I 
wonder  now " 

But  her  daughters  were  not  interested  in  Marthe;  the 
English  girl  at  the  Van  Heigens'  interested  them  a  great 
deal  more.  They  continued  to  talk  about  her  a  great  deal 
afterwards,  Denah  going  back  with  her  sister  to  the 
kitchen  and  the  vegetables,  so  as  to  be  able  to  do  so  un- 
disturbed. 

"I  will  help  you  with  these,"  she  said;  "then  we  can 
go  out." 

She  sat  down  and  took  up  a  knife.  "It  is  strange  how 
much  Vrouw  Van  Heigen  thinks  of  that  girl,"  she  said. 
"She  has  been  there  but  one  month  and  already  there  is 
no  one  like  her.  She  does  not  keep  her  in  her  place  very 
well ;  were  she  a  daughter  more  could  not  be  said.  I  won- 
der how  Mijnheer  likes  it." 

"It  was  Mijnheer  who  engaged  her,"  Anna  said.  "It  is 
not  likely  that  he  regrets.  I  hear  that  she  has  written 
some  English  letters  for  him  since  one  of  the  clerks  has 
been  ill.  My  father  says  she  can  cook  like  a  French- 
woman, and  that  is  something.  As  for  Joost,  it  is  surely 
of  little  importance  to  him,  he  is  too  quiet  to  say  anything 
to  her;  she  talks  little;  she  must  be  shy." 

Denah  had  nothing  to  say  to  this,  although,  seeing  in 
which  person  her  own  interest  in  the  Van  Heigens  lay, 
she  possibly  found  some  comfort  in  the  assurance.  After 
a  little  she  remarked,  "That  girl  has  no  accomplishments ; 
she  is  as  old-fashioned  as  our  Aunt  Barje,  a  huisvrouw, 
no  more.  It  is  strange,  for  the  English  women  make  fun 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL         41 

of  us  for  this,  and  pretend  that  they  are  educated  and  ad- 
vanced above  us ;  she  is  not,  she  can  do  nothing  but  speak 
a  few  languages ;  she  cannot  sing  nor  play,  she  has  read 
no  science,  she  cannot  draw,  nor  model  in  wax,  nor  make 
paper  flowers,  nor  do  bead  work;  she  could  not  even 
crochet  till  I  showed  her  how.  I  wonder  if  she  has  made 
any  progress  with  the  pattern  I  gave  her.  Shall  we  go 
and  see  by  and  by?  I  might  set  her  right  if  she  is  in  a 
difficulty,  and  we  could  at  the  same  time  inquire  after 
Mevrouw's  throat;  she  had  a  weakness,  I  noticed,  on 
Tuesday." 

Anna  agreed;  she  was  a  most  obliging  sister,  and  a 
while  later  they  set  out  together  for  the  Van  Heigens' 
house.  They  did  not  walk  in  the  wide,  clean  road,  but 
were  careful  to  keep  to  the  path,  pausing  a  moment  to 
consult  before  starting  for  the  other  side  when  it  was 
necessary  to  cross  over. 

The  Van  Heigens'  house  stood  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
town,  a  long  way  back  from  the  road.  The  bulb  garden 
lay  all  round  it,  though  immediately  in  front  was  a  lawn 
so  soft  and  green  that  no  one  ever  walked  on  it.  The 
house  was  of  wood,  painted  white,  and  had  a  high-pitched 
roof  of  strange,  dark-coloured  tiles;  a  canal  lay  on  two 
sides,  which  ought  to  have  made  it  damp,  but  did  not. 

Vrouw  Van  Heigen  was  pleased  to  see  the  girls,  and 
received  them  with  an  effusiveness  which  might  have  sug- 
gested that  a  longer  time  than  four  days  had  elapsed  since 
they  last  met.  She  kissed  them  on  both  cheeks,  and  led 
them  in  by  the  hand;  she  asked  particularly  how  they 
were,  and  how  their  mother  was,  and  how  their  father 
was,  and  if  they  were  not  very  tired  with  their  walk,  and 
would  they  not  have  lemonade — yes,  they  must  have 
lemonade.  "Julia,  Julia,"  she  called,  "bring  lemonade, 
bring  glasses  and  the  lemonade." 


42  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Julia  came  from  a  little  room  which  led  off  the  sitting- 
room,  carrying  the  things  required  on  a  papier-mache 
tray.  She  wore  a  large,  blue-print  apron,  for  she  had 
been  shelling  shrimps  when  she  was  called,  and  though 
she  stayed  to  wash  her  hands,  she  did  not  think  it  neces- 
sary to  remove  her  apron.  She  had  observed  it  to  be  the 
custom  hereabouts  to  wear  an  apron  of  some  sort  all  day 
long,  and  she  did  not  differentiate  between  the  grades  of 
aprons  as  Denah  and  Anna  did.  She  set  down  the  tray 
and  shook  hands  ceremoniously  with  the  sisters  and  made 
all  the  proper  inquiries  in  the  properest  way;  she  had 
also  observed  that  to  be  the  custom  of  the  place.  Then 
she  poured  out  the  lemonade  and  handed  it  round,  and 
was  afterwards  sent  to  fetch  a  glass  for  herself  and  a 
little  round  tray  to  set  it  on — every  one  had  a  little  tray 
for  fear  of  spoiling  the  crimson  plush  table-cover.  Julia 
cannot  be  said  to  have  been  anxious  for  lemonade; 
Vrouw  Van  Heigen's  growing  affection  for  her  often 
found  expression  in  drinks  at  odd  times,  a  good  deal 
more  often  than  she  appreciated.  On  this  occasion,  since 
she  was  doing  the  pouring  out  herself,  she  was  able  to 
get  off  with  half  a  glass. 

They  all  sat  round  the  table  and  talked ;  Julia  talked  a 
great  deal  the  least,  but  that  did  not  matter,  the  others  had 
so  much  to  say.  She  listened,  admiring  the  way  in  which 
one  little  incident — a  dog  running  on  the  tram  line  and 
being  called  off  just  in  time  by  its  owner — served  them 
for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  What  economy  of  ideas  it  was, 
and  how  little  strain  to  make  conversation !  Then  came 
Mevrouw's  throat,  the  little  hoarseness  Denah  had  noticed 
on  Tuesday.  It  was  nothing,  the  good  lady  declared,  she 
had  not  felt  it.  Oh,  if  they  insisted  on  noticing  it,  she 
would  own  to  a  weakness  but  no  more  than  was  usual  to 
her  when  the  dust  was  about,  and  truly  the  dust  was 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          43 

terrible  now,  she  could  not  remember  when  it  had  been 
so  bad  so  early  in  June.  And  so  on,  and  so  on,  until 
they  somehow  came  round  to  crochet  lace,  when  Julia 
was  obliged  to  confess  that  she  had  not  made  much 
progress  with  the  pattern.  She  exhibited  a  very  small 
piece  with  several  mistakes  in  it. 

"Why,"  cried  Denah,  "I  have  done  already  almost 
half  a  metre  of  the  piece  I  began  at  the  same  time.  Is  it 
difficult  for  you?" 

Julia  said  it  was,  and  Vrouw  Van  Heigen  added  by 
way  of  apology  for  her,  that  she  had  been  busy  making 
a  cool  morning  dress. 

"For  yourself?"  Anna  asked.  "Do  you  make  your 
dresses  ?" 

"This  is  for  Mevrouw,"  Julia  answered;  "but  I  can 
make  my  own." 

The  Polkingtons  had  had  to,  and  also  to  put  an  im- 
mense amount  of  thought  and  work  into  it,  because  they 
were  bound  to  get  a  fine  effect  for  a  small  expense,  and 
that  is  not  possible  without  a  large  outlay  of  time  and 
consideration.  Julia  did  not  explain  this  to  the  present 
company,  it  would  have  been  rather  incomprehensible  to 
them. 

Anna  was  at  once  fired  with  a  desire  to  make  herself 
a  cool  morning  dress,  and  asked  a  dozen  questions  as  to 
how,  while  Denah's  busy  fingers  undid  the  faulty  crochet 
work,  and  her  tongue  explained  the  mistakes.  Mevrouw 
did  not  listen  much  to  either,  but  noticing  the  glasses  were 
empty,  pressed  the  visitors  in  vain  to  have  more  lemonade. 
They  refused,  and  finding  them  quite  obdurate  she  toddled 
into  the  little  room  where  Julia  had  been  doing  the 
shrimps,  to  come  back  again,  bearing  a  large  bladder- 
covered  bottle  of  peach-brandy.  The  girls  declined  this 
very  firmly,  but  Julia  was  sent  for  more  glasses,  and  soon 


44  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

they  were  all  sipping  the  rich  flavoured  liqueur  without 
protestation. 

It  was  over  this  that  they  planned  an  expedition  to  the 
wood.  No  one  knew  quite  who  suggested  it ;  when  people 
all  talk  at  once  it  is  not  easy  to  say  who  originates  an 
idea ;  anyhow,  it  was  agreed  that  the  weather  was  so  dry 
and  the  trees  so  lovely  and  Mevrouw  so  seldom  went  out. 
She  really  felt — did  she  not? — that  she  would  enjoy 
making  a  small  excursion,  she  was  so  wonderfully  well — 
for  her.  What  did  Anna  think  her  mother  would  say? 
Perhaps  they  might  join  together  for  a  drive? 

Anna  thought  her  mother  would  be  delighted ;  indeed, 
she  often  spoke  of  the  charms  of  a  country  excursion; 
Denah  was  called  upon  to  corroborate,  and  did  so  volubly. 
Where  should  they  go?  Half-a-dozen  different  places 
were  suggested;  why  not  go  here,  or  there,  or  to  the 
wood  ?  Yes,  the  wood,  that  would  be  lovely.  They  could 
take  their  tea  out;  if  they  were  well  wrapped  up,  of 
course,  protected  from  the  damp  and  the  wind,  might  it 
not  be  possible  ? 

So  by  degrees  the  plan  was  brought  to  the  first  stage. 
Denah  and  Anna  were  to  talk  it  over  with  their  mother, 
and  if  she  thought  favourably  of  it,  then  "we  must  see." 
By  that  time  Denah  had  set  the  crochet  work  quite 
straight,  and  with  kisses  and  hand-shakings  the  visitors 
departed.  Julia  went  back  to  the  little  room  where  first 
she  washed  the  glasses  that  had  been  used,  afterwards  she 
finished  the  shrimps  and  washed  them  and  put  them  ready 
for  supper  in  a  china  dish  like  a  large  soap  dish  on  three 
feet.  When  that  was  done,  it  was  necessary  to  lay  the 
table  for  dinner  and  superintend  the  getting  of  that  meal. 

The  Van  Heigens  dined  at  four.  It  had  taken  Julia  all 
the  month  she  had  been  with  them  to  in  any  way  get  used 
to  that  time.  Mijnheer  and  the  only  son,  Joost,  camp  in 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          45 

from  the  office  for  two  hours  then.  The  office  joined  the 
house  and  the  great  dim  orderly  bulb  barns  joined  the 
office,  so  the  father  and  son  had  not  far  to  come  in  which- 
ever place  they  might  be.  Julia  and  Mevrouw  fetched 
the  food  from  the  kitchen  and  cleared  the  table,  as  well  as 
getting  their  own  meal ;  but  that  was  nothing  when  you 
were  used  to  it,  any  more  than  was  the  curious  butter  and 
nutmeg  sauce  that  always  seemed  to  play  a  part  at  dinner. 

Mijnheer  had  a  good  deal  to  say  to  Julia,  principally 
about  his  business.  The  letters  she  had  written  for  him 
during  the  illness  of  the  clerk  who  usually  did  his  English 
correspondence,  had  given  her  some  little  insight  into  it. 
This  she  had  profited  by,  being  in  the  first  instance  really 
interested,  and,  in  the  second,  not  slow  to  see  that  the 
old  man,  far  from  resenting  it,  had  been  pleased.  He 
talked  a  good  deal  about  his  affairs  now,  giving  her  little 
bits  of  information  and  explaining  rather  proudly  his 
method  of  doing  business,  and  his  father's  and  his  grand- 
father's before  him.  Joost,  as  usual,  said  little  or  nothing ; 
he  must  have  been  five  or  six  and  twenty,  but  he  had 
hardly  ever  left  the  parental  roof,  and  was  usually  so  hard 
at  work  that  he  had  little  time  or  inclination  for  frivolity. 
He  had  earnest  child-like  blue  eyes  that  Julia  did  not  care 
to  look  at,  any  more  than  she  did  the  round  yellow  face 
of  Mr.  Gillat's  watch.  This  was  rather  a  pity  as  she  could 
not  always  avoid  it,  and  certainly  he  looked  at  her  a  good 
deal,  in  fact  whenever  he  thought  he  was  not  observed. 
Of  course  he  always  was  observed,  by  her  at  least ;  that 
was  a  foregone  conclusion ;  the  observation  gave  her  some 
uneasiness. 

After  dinner  the  father  and  son  went  to  sit  on  the 
veranda,  and  Mevrouw  helped  Julia  take  the  dishes  into 
the  white  marble  kitchen  and  the  glasses  into  the  little 
off-room.  Later,  Julia  came  to  sit  on  the  veranda,  too — it 


46  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

was  somewhat  stuffy  being  all  closed  in  with  glass  win- 
dows. There  they  drank  pale  tea,  the  pot  kept  simmer- 
ing on  a  spirit-stove,  and  read  the  foreign  papers  which 
had  just  come.  Mevrouw  did  not  read,  she  made  tea  and 
did  crochet  work,  a  strip  like  Vrouw  Snieder's,  only  yel- 
low instead  of  red.  Julia,  it  is  to  be  feared,  did  not  try 
to  master  the  pattern  so  kindly  set  right  by  Denah ;  she 
could  not  resist  the  breath  from  the  outside  world  which 
the  papers  brought. 

At  six  o'clock  Mijnheer  and  his  son  went  back  to  the 
office,  and  Julia,  having  washed  the  tea-cups,  joined 
Mevrouw  in  the  sitting-room.  It  was  never  very  light 
in  that  room,  for  the  walls  were  covered  with  a  crimson 
flock  paper  and  the  woodwork  was  black ;  while  the  win- 
dows, which  looked  on  the  canal,  were  always  shaded  till 
dark.  They  sat  here  at  work  on  the  morning  gown,  till 
supper  time.  Mijnheer  sometimes  came  in  an  hour  before 
supper,  as  early  as  half-past  eight;  Joost  had  usually  too 
much  to  do  to  come  in  before  half-past  nine.  After  sup- 
per, when  the  things  were  cleared  away,  they  had  pray- 
ers; Mijnheer  read  a  chapter  from  the  Bible,  and  they 
sat  round  the  table  and  listened,  and  afterwards  he  said, 
"Now  we  will  pray,"  and  they  sat  a  while  in  silence. 
Julia  sat,  too,  her  keen,  observing  eyes  cast  down  and  a 
curious  stillness  about  her.  After  that  every  one  went  to 
bed ;  Julia  and  the  maidservant  had  two  little  rooms  right 
up  in  the  eaves  of  the  house ;  the  family  slept  on  the  floor 
below.  Julia  was  glad  of  this,  though  it  was  possible  to 
imagine  her  room  would  be  very  hot  in  summer  and  very 
cold  in  winter.  But  she  was  glad  to  be  well  above  the 
sleeping  house,  and  to  be  able  to  look  from  her  window 
across  the  wide  country,  over  the  dark  bulb  gardens — 
laid  out  like  a  Chinese  puzzle  with  their  eight-foot  hedges 
— to  the  lights  of  the  town  on  the  one  hand,  and,  better 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          47 

still,  to  the  dim  curve  of  the  Dunes  on  the  other.  It  is 
to  be  feared  she  sometimes  spent  a  longer  time  at  her  win- 
dow than  was  wise,  seeing  the  early  hour  at  which  she 
had  to  rise;  but  no  one  was  troubled  by  it,  for  she  was 
careful  to  take  off  her  shoes  first  thing ;  the  rooms  were 
unceiled,  and  it  was  necessary  to  tread  lightly  if  one 
would  not  disturb  people  below. 

On  the  day  after  that  of  Anna  and  Denah's  visit,  Heer 
Van  Heigen  offered  to  show  Julia  the  bulb  barns.  It  was 
a  Saturday,  and  so  after  dinner,  the  workmen  having  all 
gone  home,  there  was  no  one  about  and  she  could  ascend 
the  steep  barn  ladders  without  any  suffering  in  her  mod- 
esty. At  least  that  was  what  Mijnheer  thought;  Julia, 
her  modesty  being  of  a  very  serviceable  order,  may  have 
given  the  matter  less  consideration,  but  she  accepted  the 
offer. 

The  barns  were  very  large  and  high,  many  of  them 
three  storeys  and  each  storey  lofty.  The  light  inside  was 
dim,  a  sort  of  dun  colour,  and  the  air  very  dry  and  full 
of  a  strange,  not  unpleasant  smell.  Everything  was  as 
clean  as  clean  could  be ;  no  litter,  no  dirt,  the  floor  nicely 
swept,  the  shelves  that  ran  all  round  and  rose,  tier  upon 
tier,  in  an  enormous  stand  that  occupied  the  whole  centre 
of  the  place,  all  perfectly  orderly.  On  the  sheves  the 
bulbs  lay,  every  one  smooth  and  clean  and  dry,  sorted 
according  to  kind  and  quality ;  Mijnheer  knew  them  all ; 
he  could,  like  a  book-lover  with  his  books,  put  his  hand 
upon  any  that  he  wished  in  the  dark.  It  seemed  to  Julia 
that  there  were  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  different  sorts. 
Not  only  hyacinths  and  tulips  and  such  well-known  ones 
in  endless  sizes  and  varieties,  but  little  roots  with  six 
and  seven  syllable  names  she  had  never  heard  before,  and 
big  roots,  too,  and  strange  cornery  roots,  a  never-ending 
quantity. 


48  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Mijnheer  told  her  they  were  not  yet  all  in ;  many  were 
in  the  ground  and  had  still  to  be  lifted.  This  she  knew, 
for  she  had  seen  the  dead  tops  of  some  in  the  little  en- 
closed squares  where  they  grew ;  from  her  bedroom  win- 
dow, too,  she  saw  others  still  in  bloom — a  patch,  the  size 
of  a  tennis-lawn  squared,  of  scarlet  ranunculous,  little 
blood-red  rosettes,  sheltered  by  a  high  close-clipped  hedge. 
And  another  patch  of  iris  hispanica,  fairy  flowers  of 
palest  gold  and  lavender,  quivering  at  the  top  of  their 
grey-green  stalks  like  tropical  dragon-flies  hovering  over 
a  field  of  growing  oats.  These  it  seemed,  and  many 
others,  would  be  brought  in  by  and  by,  then  the  great 
barns  would  be  really  full.  Mijnheer  took  up  a  root  here 
and  there,  telling  her  something  of  the  history  of  each; 
explaining  how  the  narcissus  increased  and  the  tulips 
grew ;  showing  her  hyacinth  bulbs  cut  in  half -breadth  ways 
with  all  the  separate  severed  layers  distended  by  reason 
of  the  growing  and  swelling  of  the  seeds  between. 

"Each  little  seed  will  be  a  bulb  by  and  by,"  he  said, 
"but  not  yet.  When  we  cut  the  root  first,  we  set  it  in  the 
ground  and  these  begin  to  grow  and  become  in  time  as 
you  see  them  now.  Afterwards  they  grow  bigger  and 
bigger  till  their  parent  can  no  longer  contain  them." 

"Does  it  take  long  for  them  to  grow  full  size?"  Julia 
asked. 

"It  takes  five  years  to  grow  the  finest  hyacinth  bulbs," 
Mijnheer  answered,  "but  inferior  ones  are  more  quick. 
And  when  the  bulb  is  grown,  there  is  one  bloom — fine, 
magnificent,  a  truss  of  flowers — after  that  it  deteriorates, 
it  is,  one  may  say,  over.  Ah,  but  it  is  magnificent  while 
it  is  there!  There  is  no  flower  like  the  hyacinth;  had  I 
my  way,  I  would  grow  nothing  else,  but  people  will  not 
have  them  now.  They  must  have  novelties.  'Give  us 
narcissus/  they  say ;  'they  are  so  graceful* — I  do  not  see 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          49 

the  grace — 'Or  iris' — well,  some  are  fine,  I  allow,  but  they 
do  not  last  in  bloom  as  do  hyacinths.  The  mourn  iris  of 
Persia  is  very  beautiful ;  we  have  not  one  flowering  yet, 
but  we  shall  have  by  and  by.  I  will  show  you  then ;  you 
will  think  it  very  handsome.  When  it  blooms  I  go  to  it  in 
the  morning  and  dust  the  sand  from  the  petals.  I  feel 
that  I  can  reverence  that  flower ;  it  is  most  beautiful." 

"Is  it  very  scarce?"  Julia  asked. 

"Somewhat,"  Mijnheer  answered ;  "but  we  have  things 
that  are  more  so,  we  have  many  novelties  so  called.  Ah, 
but  we  have  one  novelty  that  is  a  true  one,  it  is  a  wonder, 
it  has  no  price,  it  is  priceless!"  He  drew  a  deep  breath 
of  almost  awed  pride.  "It  is  the  greatest  rarity  that  has 
ever  been  reared  in  Holland,  a  miracle,  in  fact — a  blue 
daffodil!" 

Julia  refrained  from  mentioning  that  she  had  heard  of 
the  rarity  before;  she  leaned  against  the  centre  stand 
and  listened  while  the  old  man  grew  eloquent,  with  the 
eloquence  of  the  connoisseur,  not  the  tradesman,  over  his 
treasure.  There  was  no  need  for  her  to  say  much,  only 
to  put  a  question  here  and  there,  or  make  a  sympathetic 
comment ;  with  little  or  no  effort  she  learned  a  good  deal 
about  the  wonderful  bulb.  It  seemed  that  it  really  had 
been  grown  in  the  Van  Heigens'  gardens,  and  not  im- 
ported from  Asia,  as  Mr.  Cross  thought.  There  were  six 
roots  by  this  time;  not  so  many  as  had  been  hoped  and 
expected,  it  did  not  increase  well,  and  was  evidently 
going  to  be  difficult  to  grow. 

"Would  you  like  to  know  the  name  which  it  will  im- 
mortalise ?"  the  old  man  asked  at  last.  "It  is  called  Nar- 
cissus Triandrus  Azurem  Vrouw  Van  Heigen." 

"You  named  it  in  honour  of  Mevrouw,  I  suppose?" 
Julia  said. 

"I  did  not;  Joost  did." 


50  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Mijnheer  Joost  ?"  she  repeated. 

"Yes,"  the  father  answered.  "It  is  his,  not  mine;  to 
him  belongs  the  honour.  It  is  he  who  has  produced  this 
marvel.  How?  That  is  a  secret;  perhaps  even  I  could 
not  tell  you  if  I  would ;  Nature  is  wonderful  in  her  ways ; 
we  can  only  help  her,  we  cannot  create.  Yes,  yes,  it  is 
Joost  who  has  done  this.  He  seemed  to  you  a  retiring 
youth?  Yet  he  is  the  most  envied  and  most  honoured 
man  of  our  profession.  I  would  sooner — there  are  many 
men  in  Holland  who  would  sooner — have  produced  this 
flower  than  have  a  thousand  pounds.  And  he  is  my  son — 
you  may  well  believe  that  I  am  proud." 

And  Mijnheer  beamed  with  satisfaction  in  his  son  and 
his  blue  daffodil.  But  Julia  leaned  against  the  stand  in 
the  dry  twilight,  saying  nothing.  Money,  it  appeared, 
was  not  then  the  measure  of  all  things;  neither  intrins- 
ically, as  with  Mr.  Alexander  Cross,  nor  for  what  it  rep- 
resented in  comfort  and  position,  as  with  her  own  family, 
did  it  rank  with  these  bulb  growers.  They,  these  people 
whom  her  mother  would  have  called  market  gardeners, 
tradespeople,  it  seemed,  loved  and  reverenced  their  work ; 
they  thought  about  it  and  for  it,  were  proud  of  it  and 
valued  distinction  in  it,  and  nothing  else.  The  blue  daf- 
fodil was  no  valuable  commercial  asset,  it  was  an  honour 
and  glory,  an  unparalleled  floral  distinction — no  wonder 
Cross  could  not  buy  or  exploit  it.  In  a  jump  Julia  com- 
prehended the  situation  more  fully  than  that  astute  busi- 
ness man  ever  could ;  but  at  the  same  time  she  felt  a  little 
bitter  amusement — it  was  this,  this  treasured  wonder, 
that  she  thought  to  obtain. 

The  next  day,  Sunday,  Julia  went  to  church  with  Mijn- 
heer and  Joost ;  Mevrouw  did  not  find  herself  well  enough 
for  church,  but  she  insisted  that  Julia  should  not  stay  at 
home  on  her  account.  Accordingly  the  girl  accompanied 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          51 

father  and  son  to  the  Groote  Kerk  and  listened  to  the 
rather  dull  service  there.  For  the  most  part  she  sat  with 
her  eyes  demurely  cast  down,  though  once  or  twice  she 
looked  round  the  old  barn-like  place,  and  wondered  if 
there  were  any  frescoes  under  the  whitewash  of  the  walls 
and  whence  came  the  faint,  all  pervading  smell,  like  a 
phantom  of  incense  long  forgotten.  When  service  was 
over  and  they  came  out  into  the  sunny  street,  Mijnheer 
announced  that  he  was  going  to  see  a  friend.  Julia,  of 
course,  must  hurry  home  to  set  the  table  for  the  mid-day 
coffee  drinking,  and  afterwards  prepare  for  dinner. 
Joost  was  going  back,  likewise,  and  to  her  it  was  so 
natural  a  thing  they  should  go  together  that  she  never 
thought  about  it.  It  did  not,  however,  seem  so  to  him, 
and  after  walking  a  few  paces  in  embarrassment,  he 
said 

"You  would  perhaps  prefer  I  did  not  walk  with  you?" 

"Oh,  no,"  she  answered,  in  some  surprise;  "I  shall  be 
pleased,  if  you  are  going  the  same  way,  that  is." 

He  fidgeted,  becoming  more  embarrassed.  "You  are 
sure  you  do  not  mind  ?"  he  said.  "It  is  a  little  consipcu- 
ous  for  you." 

Then  she  understood,  and  looked  up  with  twinkling 
eyes.  "I  am  afraid  I  am  conspicuous,  anyhow,"  she  said. 

This  was  true  enough,  for  her  clothes,  fitting  like  an 
Englishwoman's,  and  put  on  like  a  Frenchwoman's  (the 
Polkingtons  all  knew  how  to  dress),  were  unlike  any 
others  in  sight.  Her  face,  too,  dark  and  thin  and  keenly 
alert,  was  unlike,  and  her  light,  easy  walk;  and  if  this 
was  not  enough  it  must  be  added  that  she  was  now  walk- 
ing in  the  road  because  the  pavement  was  so  crowded. 

Joost  stepped  off  the  path  to  make  room  for  her  and 
she  saw  by  his  face  that  his  mind  was  not  at  ease. 

"Pray,  Mijnheer,"  she  said,  in  her  softest  tones,  and 


52  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

her  voice  had  many  tones  as  her  companion  had  not 
failed  to  notice,  though  he  was  not  aware  that  the  softest 
was  also  usually  the  most  mischievous,  "will  you  not 
walk  the  other  side  of  the  way?  Then  you  will  not  be 
conspicuous  at  all." 

"I  do  not  mind  it,"  he  said,  blushing,  and  Julia  de- 
cided that  his  father's  description  of  him  as  a  retiring 
youth  was  really  short  of  the  mark.  They  walked  along 
together  down  the  quiet,  bright  streets ;  there  were  many 
people  about,  but  nobody  in  a  hurry,  and  all  in  Sunday 
clothes,  bent  on  visiting  or  decorous  pleasure-making. 
Everywhere  was  sunny  and  everything  looked  as  if  it  had 
had  its  face  washed ;  week  days  in  the  town  always  looked 
to  Julia  like  Sundays,  and  Sundays,  this  Sunday  in  par- 
ticular, looked  like  Easter. 

In  time  they  came  to  the  trees  that  bordered  the  canal ; 
there  were  old  Spanish  houses  here,  a  beautiful  purplish 
red  in  colour,  and  with  carving  above  the  doors.  Julia 
looked  up  at  her  favourite  doorpiece — a  galleon  in  full 
sail,  a  veritable  picture  in  relief,  unspoiled  by  three  hun- 
dred years  of  wind  and  weather. 

"I  think  this  is  the  most  beautiful  town  I  was  ever  in," 
she  said.  Her  companion  looked  surprised. 

"Do  you  like  it?"  he  asked.  "It  must  be  quite  unlike 
what  you  are  used  to,  all  of  it  must  be." 

"It  is,"  she  answered,  "all  of  it,  as  you  say — the  place, 
the  ways,  the  people." 

"And  you  like  it?  You  do  not  think  it — you  do  not 
think  us  what  you  call  slow,  stupid?" 

She  was  a  little  surprised,  it  had  never  occurred  to  her 
that  he,  any  more  than  the  others,  would  think  about  her 
point  of  view.  "No,"  she  answered,  "I  admire  it  all  very 
much,  it  is  sincere,  no  one  appears  other  than  he  is,  or 
aims  at  being  or  seeming  more.  Your  house  is  the  same 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          53 

back  and  front,  and  you,  none  of  you  have  a  wrong  side, 
the  whole  life  is  solid  right  through." 

Joost  did  not  quite  understand;  had  she  not  guessed 
that  to  be  likely  she  would  hardly  have  spoken  so  frankly. 
"I  fear  I  do  not  understand  you,"  he  said ;  "it  is  difficult 
when  we  do  not  know  each  other's  language  perfectly." 

"We  know  it  very  well,"  Julia  answered;  "as  well  as 
possible.  If  we  were  born  in  the  same  place,  in  the  same 
house,  we  should  not  understand  it  better." 

He  still  looked  puzzled;  he  was  half  afraid  she  was 
laughing  at  him.  "You  think  I  am  stupid?"  he  said, 
gravely. 

She  denied  it,  and  they  walked  on  a  little  in  silence. 
They  were  in  the  quieter  part  of  the  town  now  and  could 
talk  undisturbed ;  after  a  little  he  spoke  again,  musingly. 

"Often  I  wonder  what  you  think  of,  you  have  such 
great,  shining  eyes,  they  eat  up  everything ;  they  see  every- 
thing and  through  everything,  I  think.  They  sweep 
round  the  room,  or  the  persons  or  the  place,  and  gather  all 
— may  I  say  it  ? — like  some  fine  net — to  me  it  seems  they 
draw  all  things  into  your  brain,  and  there  you  weave  them 
and  weave  them  into  thoughts." 

Julia  swallowed  a  little  exclamation,  and  by  an  effort 
contrived  not  to  appear  as  surprised  as  she  was  by  this 
too  discerning  remark.  She  was  so  young  that  she  did 
not  before  know  that  children  and  childlike  folk  some- 
times divine  by  instinct  the  same  conclusions  that  very 
clever  people  arrive  at  by  much  reasoning  and  observa- 
tion. She  felt  decidedly  uncomfortable  at  this  explanation 
of  Joost's  frequent  contemplations  of  herself. 

"You  seem  to  think  me  very  clever,"  she  said. 

"Of  course,"  he  answered  simply,  "you  are  clever." 

"No,  I  am  not,"  she  returned ;  "ask  your  mother ;  ask 
Denah  Snieder ;  they  do  not  think  me  clever.  What  can 


54  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

I  do,  except  cook?  Oh,  yes,  and  speak  a  few  foreign 
languages  as  you  can  yourself  ?  I  cannot  paint,  or  draw, 
or  sing ;  I  do  not  understand  music ;  why,  when  you  play 
Bach,  I  wish  to  go  out  of  the  room." 

"That  is  true,"  he  admitted;  "I  have  felt  it." 

Julia  bit  her  lip;  she  had  never  before  expressed  her 
opinion  of  Bach,  and  she  did  not  feel  in  the  least  grati- 
fied that  he  had  found  it  out  for  himself. 

"It  is  absurd  to  call  me  clever,"  she  said.  "I  have  little 
learning  and  no  accomplishments.  I  cannot  even  get  on 
with  the  crochet  work  Denah  showed  me,  and  I  do  not 
know  how  to  make  flowers  of  paper." 

"But  why  should  one  make  flowers  of  paper?"  he 
asked,  in  his  serious  way.  "They  are  not  at  all  beautiful." 

"Denah  makes  them  beautifully,"  she  answered. 

The  argument  did  not  seem  to  carry  weight,  but  Julia 
advanced  no  other ;  she  thought  silence  the  wisest  course. 
They  had  almost  reached  home  now ;  a  little  before  they 
came  to  the  gate,  Joost  opened  the  subject  of  herself  again. 
"I  think  sometimes  you  must  make  fun  of  us ;  do  you  not 
sometimes  in  your  heart  laugh  just  a  little  bit?" 

"I  laugh  at  everything  sometimes,"  she  said;  "myself 
most  of  all.  Do  you  never  laugh  at  yourself?  I  expect 
not ;  you  are  very  serious.  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is  like : 
a  little  goblin  comes  out  of  your  head  and  stands  in  front 
of  you ;  the  goblin  is  you,  a  sort  of  you ;  the  other  part, 
the  part  people  know,  sits  opposite,  and  the  goblin  laughs 
at  it  because  it  sees  how  ridiculous  the  other  is,  how  gro- 
tesque and  how  futile.  My  goblin  came  out  into  my  room 
last  night  and  laughed  and  laughed;  you  would  almost 
have  heard  him  if  you  had  been  there." 

They  had  reached  the  gate  now,  and  as  Joost  held  it 
open  for  her  to  pass  through,  she  saw  that  he  had  blushed 
to  the  ears  at  the  lightly  spoken  words — if  he  had  been 


OWNER  OF  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL          55 

in  her  room  last  night;  the  impropriety  of  them  to  him 
was  evident.  For  a  moment  she  blushed,  too,  then  she 
recovered  herself  and  grew  impatient  with  one  so  artifi- 
cial— and  yet  so  simple,  so  self-conscious — and  yet  so 
unconscious,  so  desperately  stupid — and  yet  so  uncom- 
fortably clear-sighted. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  EXCURSION 

THE  following  Monday  was  fine  and  warm,  and  since 
the  whole  previous  week  had  also  been  fine  and  warm, 
Mevrouw  thought  they  might  venture  to  make  the  talked- 
of  excursion.  Messages  were  accordingly  sent  to  the 
Snieders,  and  from  the  Snieders  back  again,  and  after 
a  wonderful  amount  of  talk  and  arranging,  everything 
was  settled.  Dinner  was  a  little  early  that  day,  and  a 
little  hurried,  though,  since  the  carriage  was  not  to  come 
till  after  five  o'clock,  there  was  perhaps  not  much  need 
for  that.  However,  it  is  not  every  day  in  the  week  one 
makes  an  excursion,  so  naturally  things  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  go  quite  as  usual  when  such  an  event  occurs. 

The  carriage  came,  Mevrouw  had  been  waiting  ten 
minutes,  and  three  times  been  to  see  why  Julia  was  not 
waiting  with  her.  At  the  sound  of  wheels  Julia  came 
out;  she  had  just  finished  washing  the  glasses  (which  she 
had  been  told  not  to  touch,  as  there  was  certainly  no 
time).  She  was  quite  ready,  but  Mevrouw  at  that  mo- 
ment discovered  that  she  had  the  wrong  sunshade.  Julia 
fetched  the  right  one  and  carried  it  out  for  the  old  lady ; 
also  an  umbrella  with  a  bow  on  the  handle,  a  mackintosh, 
a  shawl,  and  a  large  basket.  Mijnheer  came  from  the 
office  with  his  spectacles  pushed  up  on  his  forehead,  and  a 
minute  later  Joost  also  came  to  say  good-bye;  even  the 
maidservant  came  from  the  kitchen  to  see  them  start. 

The  carriage  drew  up ;  it  was  a  strange-looking  vehicle, 

56 


THE    EXCURSION  57 

in  shape  something  between  a  hearse  and  an  ark  on  wheels, 
but  with  the  greater  part  of  the  sides  open  to  the  air. 
Vrouw  Snieder  and  her  two  daughters  were  already  with- 
in, with  their  bow-trimmed  umbrellas,  sunshades,  mack- 
intoshes, shawls  and  basket.  There  was  necessarily  a 
good  deal  of  greeting;  Mijnheer  and  Joost  shook  hands 
with  all  the  three  ladies,  and  inquired  after  Herr  Snieder, 
and  received  polite  inquiries  in  return.  Then  Denah  in- 
sisted on  getting  out,  so  that  Mevrouw  should  be  better 
able  to  get  in;  also  to  show  that  she  was  athletic  and 
agile,  like  an  English  girl,  and  thought  nothing  of  getting 
in  and  out  of  a  high  carriage.  Mevrouw  kissed  her  hus- 
band and  son,  twice  each,  very  loud,  called  a  good-bye  to 
the  servant,  and  got  in.  Julia  shook  hands,  said  good- 
bye, and  also  got  in.  Denah  watched  her,  and  observed 
the  shape  of  her  feet  and  ankles  jealously.  She  glanced 
sharply  at  Joost,  but  he  was  not  guilty  of  such  indecorum 
as  even  thinking  about  any  girl's  legs,  so,  having  said 
her  good-bye,  she  got  in  reassured.  Finally  they  drove 
away  amid  wishes  for  a  safe  drive  and  a  pleasant  excur- 
sion. 

Of  course  there  was  a  little  settling  to  do  inside  the 
carriage,  the  wraps  and  baskets  to  be  disposed  of,  and 
each  person  to  be  assured  that  the  others  had  enough 
room,  and  just  the  place  they  preferred  to  any  other. 
By  the  time  that  was  done  they  stopped  again  at  the 
house  of  Mijnheer's  head  clerk;  here  they  were  to  take 
up  two  children,  girls  of  fourteen  and  fifteen,  who  had 
been  invited  to  come  with  the  party.  The  carriage  was 
not  kept  waiting,  the  children  were  out  before  it  had 
fairly  stopped ;  they  were  flaxenly  fair  girls,  wearing  lit- 
tle blue  earrings,  Sunday  hats,  and  cotton  gloves  of  course 
— all  the  party  wore  cotton  gloves ;  it  was,  Julia  judged, 
part  of  the  excursion  outfit. 


58  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Now  they  were  really  off,  driving  out  beyond  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town ;  along  flat  roads  where  the  wheels  sank 
noiselessly  into  the  soft  sand,  and  the  horses'  feet  clattered 
on  the  narrow  brick  track  in  the  centre.  For  a  time  they 
followed  the  canal  closely,  but  soon  they  left  it,  and  saw 
in  the  distance  nothing  but  its  high  green  banks,  with  the 
brown  sails  of  boats  showing  above,  and  looking  as  if 
they  were  a  good  deal  higher  than  the  carriage  road. 
They  passed  small  fields,  subdivided  into  yet  smaller 
patches,  and  all  very  highly  cultivated.  And  small  black 
and  white  houses,  and  small  black  and  white  cows,  and 
black  and  white  goats,  and  dogs,  and  even  cats  of  the 
same  combination  of  colour.  Everything  was  rather  small, 
but  everywhere  very  tidy;  nothing  out  of  its  place  or 
wasted,  and  nobody  hurrying  or  idling;  all  were  busy, 
with  a  small  bustling  business,  as  unlike  aggressive  Eng- 
lish idleness  as  it  was  unlike  the  deceptive,  leisurely  power 
of  English  work. 

Denah  and  Anna  looked  out  of  either  side  of  the  car- 
riage, and  pointed  out  things  to  Julia  and  the  two  little 
girls.  Here  it  was  what  they  called  a  country  seat,  a 
sort  of  castellated  variety  of  overgrown  chalet,  sur- 
rounded by  a  wonderful  garden  of  blazing  flower-beds 
and  emerald  lawns,  all  set  round  with  rows  and  rows  of 
plants  in  bright  red  pots.  Or  there  it  was  a  cemetery, 
where  the  peaceful  aspect  made  Denah  sentimental,  and 
the  beauty  of  the  trees  drew  Anna's  praise.  The  two 
elder  ladies  paid  less  attention  to  what  they  passed ;  they 
contented  themselves  with  leaning  back  and  saying  how 
beautiful  the  air  was,  and  how  refreshing  the  country. 
The  girls  said  that  as  well ;  they  all  agreed  six  times  with- 
in the  hour  that  it  was  a  delightful  expedition,  and  they 
enjoying  it  much. 

In  time  they  came  to  the  wood.    An  unpaved  road  ran 


THE    EXCURSION  59 

through  it  of  soft,  deep  sand,  which  deadened  every 
sound;  on  either  hand  the  trees  rose,  pines  and  larch 
and  beech  principally,  with  a  few  large-leafed  shivering 
poplars  here  and  there.  There  was  no  undergrowth,  and 
few  bird  songs,  only  the  dim  wood  aisles  stretching  away, 
quiet  and  green.  Suddenly  it  seemed  to  Julia  that  the 
world's  horizon  had  been  stretched,  the  little  neatness, 
the  clean,  trim  brightness,  the  bustling,  industrious  toy 
world  was  gone;  in  its  place  was  the  twilight  of  the 
trees,  the  silence,  the  repose,  the  haunting,  indefinable 
sense  of  home  which  is  only  to  be  found  in  these  cathed- 
rals of  Nature's  making. 

"Ah,  the  wood!"  Denah  said,  with  a  profound  sigh. 
"The  beautiful  wood!  Miss  Julia,  do  you  not  love  it?" 

Julia  did  not  assent,  but  Denah  went  on  quite  satisfied, 
"You  cannot  love  it  as  I  do;  I  think  I  am  a  child  of 
Nature,  nothing  would  please  me  more  than  always  to 
live  here." 

"You  would  have  to  go  into  the  town  sometimes," 
Julia  said,  "to  buy  gloves;  the  ones  you  have  would  not 
last  for  ever." 

Denah  looked  a  little  puzzled  by  the  difficulty ;  she  had 
not  apparently  thought  out  the  details  of  life  in  a  natural 
state;  but  before  she  could  come  to  any  conclusion  one 
of  the  little  girls  cried,  "Music — I  hear  music !" 

All  the  ladies  said  "Delicious!"  together,  and  "How 
beautiful !"  and  Denah,  content  to  ignore  Nature,  added 
rapturously,  "Music  in  the  wood!  Ah,  exquisite!  two 
beauties  together!" 

Julia  echoed  the  remark,  though  the  music  was  that  of 
a  piano-organ.  The  horizon  had  drawn  in  again,  and 
the  prospect  narrowed;  the  silence  was  full  of  noises 
now,  voices  and  laughter,  amidst  which  the  organ  notes 
did  not  seem  out  of  place.  And  near  at  hand  under  the 


60  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

trees  there  were  tables  spread  and  people  having  tea, 
enjoying  themselves  in  a  simple-hearted,  noisy  fashion, 
in  no  way  suggestive  of  cathedral  twilight. 

The  carriage  was  put  up,  the  tea  ordered,  and  in  a 
little  they,  too,  were  sitting  at  one  of  the  square  tables. 
Each  lady  was  provided  with  a  high  wooden  chair,  and 
a  little  wooden  box  footstool.  A  kettle  on  a  hot  potful  of 
smouldering  wood  ashes  was  set  on  the  table;  cups  and 
saucers  and  goats'  milk  were  also  supplied  to  them,  and 
opaque  beet-root  sugar.  The  food  they  had  brought 
in  their  baskets,  big  new  broodje  split  in  half,  buttered 
and  put  together  again  with  a  slither  of  Dutch  cheese 
between.  These  and,  to  wind  up  with,  some  thin  sweet 
biscuits  carried  in  a  papier-mache  box,  and  handed  out 
singly  by  Vrouw  Van  Heigen,  who  had  brought  them  as 
a  surprise  and  a  treat. 

"Do  they  have  such  picnics  as  this  in  England  ?"  Anna 
asked,  as  she  gathered  up  the  crumbs  of  her  biscuit. 

"I  have  never  been  to  one,"  Julia  answered,  and  in- 
wardly she  thought  of  her  mother  and  Violet  driving  in  a 
wheeled  ark  to  the  wood,  there  to  sit  at  little  wooden 
tables  and  stretch  their  mouths  in  the  public  eye. 

"Ah!"  said  Vrouw  Snieder;  "then  it  is  all  the  more 
of  a  pleasure  and  a  novelty  to  you." 

Julia  said  it  was,  and  soon  afterwards  they  rose  from 
the  table  to  walk  in  the  wood.  The  two  elder  ladies  did 
not  get  far,  and  before  long  came  back  to  sit  on  their 
wooden  chairs  again.  The  girls  went  some  little  distance, 
all  keeping  together,  and  being  careful  not  to  wander 
out  of  sight  and  sound  of  the  other  picnic  parties.  Once 
when  they  came  to  the  extreme  limit  of  their  walk,  Julia 
half-hesitated.  She  looked  into  the  quiet  green  distance. 
It  would  be  easy  to  leave  them,  to  give  them  the  slip; 
she  could  walk  at  double  their  pace  with  half  their  exer- 


THE    EXCURSION  61 

tion,  she  could  lose  herself  among  the  trees  while  they 
were  wondering  why  she  had  gone,  and  making  up  their 
minds  to  follow  her;  and,  most  important  of  all,  when 
she  came  back  she  could  explain  everything  quite  easily, 
so  that  they  would  not  think  it  in  the  least  strange — an 
accident,  a  missing  of  the  way,  anything.  Should  she  do 
it — should  she?  The  wild  creature  that  had  lived  half- 
smothered  within  her  for  all  the  twenty  years  of  her 
life  fluttered  and  stirred.  It  had  stirred  before,  rebelling 
against  the  shams  of  the  Marbridge  life,  as  it  rebelled 
against  the  restrictions  of  the  present;  it  had  never  had 
scope  or  found  vent;  still,  for  all  that  it  was  not  dead; 
possibly,  even,  it  was  growing  stronger;  it  called  her 
now  to  run  away.  But  she  did  not  do  it ;  advisability,  the 
Polkingtons'  patron  saint,  suggested  to  her  that  one 
does  not  learn  to  shine  in  the  caged  life  by  allowing  one- 
self the  luxury  of  occasional  escape. 

She  turned  her  back  on  the  green  distance.  "Shall  we 
not  go  back  to  where  the  music  is  playing?"  she  said. 

They  went,  walking  with  their  arms  entwined  as  other 
girls  were  doing,  Julia  between  the  broad,  white-skinned 
sisters,  like  a  rapier  between  cushions.  The  two  younger 
girls  ran  on  in  front.  "There  is  Mevrouw,"  they  cried. 
"She  is  calling  us.  The  carriage  is  ready,  too;  oh,  do 
you  think  it  is  already  time  to  go?" 

It  seemed  as  if  it  really  was  the  case.  Vrouw  Snieder 
stood  clapping  her  hands  and  beckoning  to  them,  and  the 
coachman  appeared  impatient  to  be  off.  With  reluctance, 
and  many  times  repeated  regrets,  they  collected  their 
wraps  and  baskets,  and  got  into  the  carriage. 

"Good-bye,  beautiful  wood,  good-bye!"  Denah  said, 
leaning  far  out  as  they  started.  "Oh,  if  one  could  but 
remain  here  till  the  moon  rose !" 


62  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"It  would  be  very  damp,"  her  mother  observed.  "The 
dew  would  fall." 

To  which  incontestable  remark  Denah  made  no  reply. 

The  return  journey  was  much  like  the  drive  there,  with 
one  exception;  they  passed  one  object  of  interest  they 
had  not  seen  before.  It  was  when  they  were  nearing 
the  outskirts  of  the  town  that  Anna  exclaimed,  "An  Eng- 
lishman !  Look,  look,  Miss  Julia,  a  compatriot  of  yours !" 

The  season  was  full  early  for  tourists,  and  at  no  time  did 
the  place  attract  many.  Englishmen  who  came  now  prob- 
ably came  on  business  which  was  unlikely  to  bring  them 
out  to  these  quiet,  flat  fields.  But  Anna  and  Denah,  who 
joined  her  in  a  much  more  demonstrative  look-out  than 
Marbridge  would  have  considered  well-bred,  were  in- 
sistent on  the  nationality. 

"He  walks  like  an  Englishman,"  Anna  said,  "as  if  all 
the  world  belonged  to  him." 

"And  looks  like  one,"  Denah  added ;  "he  has  no  mous- 
tache, and  wears  a  glass  in  his  eye,  look,  Miss  Julia." 

Julia  looked,  then  drew  back  rather  quickly.  They 
were  right,  it  was  an  Englishman ;  it  was  of  all  men  Raw- 
son-Clew. 

What  was  he  doing  here?  By  what  extraordinary 
chance  he  came  to  be  in  this  unlikely  place  she  could  not 
think.  She  was  very  glad  that  Mevrouw  felt  the  air 
chilly,  and  so  had  had  the  leather  flaps  pulled  over  part 
of  the  open  sides  of  the  carriage ;  this  and  the  eager  sis- 
ters screened  her  so  well  that  it  was  unlikely  he  could 
see  her. 

"Is  he  not  an  Englishman  ?"  Anna  asked. 

"Yes,"  she  answered ;  "one  could  not  mistake  him  for 
anything  else." 

"I  wonder  if  he  recognised  you  as  a  country-woman," 


THE    EXCURSION  63 

Anna  speculated;  and  Julia  said  she  did  not  consider 
herself  typically  English  in  appearance. 

The  sisters  talked  for  the  rest  of  the  way  of  the  Eng- 
lishman; of  his  air  and  bearing,  and  the  fact,  of  which 
they  declared  themselves  convinced,  that  he  was  a  person 
of  distinction. 

But  it  was  not  till  the  drive  was  over,  and  the  party 
had  separated,  that  Denah  was  able  to  say  what  was 
burning  on  her  tongue.  They  had  left  the  clerk's  children 
at  their  house,  said  good-bye  to  Vrouw  Van  Heigen  and 
Julia,  and  were  within  their  own  home  at  last;  the  girls 
went  up  to  their  bedroom,  and  Denah  carefully  fastened 
the  door,  then  she  said  mysteriously,  "Miss  Julia  knows 
that  Englishman" 

Anna  jumped  at  the  intelligence,  and  still  more  at  the 
tone.  "Did  she  tell  you?"  she  asked. 

"No,"  Denah  replied  with  some  scorn ;  "she  would  not 
tell  any  one,  she  wishes  it  concealed ;  she  thinks  it  is  so', 
but  I  saw  it." 

The  tone  and  manner  suggested  many  things,  but  Anna 
was  a  terribly  matter-of-fact  person,  to  whom  sugges- 
tions were  nothing.  "Why  should  she  wish  it  concealed  ?" 
she  inquired. 

"I  do  not  know  why,"  Denah  answered ;  "that  remains 
to  be  seen.  As  for  how  I  know  it,  I  saw  it  in  her  face ; 
when  she  looked  at  him  her  lips  became  set,  and  her  eyes 
— she  looked "  She  hesitated  for  a  word,  and  drop- 
ped to  the  homely,  "She  looked  as  if  she  would  bite  with 
annoyance  that  he  should  be  here.  The  expression  was 
gone  in  a  moment;  she  spoke  with  an  ease  and  natural- 
ness that  was  astonishing,  even  disgusting;  but  it  had 
been  there.  I  do  not  trust  her." 

The  last  was  said  with  great  seriousness,  and  for  a 
little  Anna  was  impressed.  But  not  for  long,  she  could 


64  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

not  accept  such  evidence  as  this;  in  her  opinion  it  was 
"fancy." 

"You  read  too  many  romances,"  she  said ;  "y°ur  nead 
is  full  of  such  things.  I  do  not  believe  Miss  Julia  knew 
the  Englishman,  she  would  not  have  hidden  from  us  her 
knowledge  if  she  did ;  it  is  not  so  easy  to  hide  one's  feel- 
ings in  the  flash  of  an  eye,  besides  there  was  no  reason. 
Also" — this  as  an  afterthought — "he  was  a  man  of  good 
family;  you  could  see  at  a  glance  that  he  was  of  the 
aristocracy,  while  she  is  a  paid  companion  to  Vrouw  Van 
Heigen ;  she  could  never  before  have  met  him. 

Denah,  however,  was  not  convinced ;  she  only  repeated 
darkly,  "I  mistrust  her." 

Julia,  in  the  meantime,  was  busy  with  her  household 
duties,  talking  over  the  excursion  the  while  with  Mev- 
rouw,  and  helping  to  detail  it  to  Mijnheer.  At  last  the 
table  was  ready  for  supper  and  the  coffee  made.  Mev- 
rouw  sat  with  her  crochet,  and  Mijnheer  opposite  her 
with  his  paper.  It  wanted  more  than  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  to  supper  time,  Julia  had  been  too  quick ;  still  it  did 
not  matter,  the  coffee  would  not  hurt  standing  on  the 
spirit-stove;  it  stood  there  half  the  day.  She  had  all 
this  time  to  spare,  but  she  did  not  fetch  her  crochet  work ; 
she  went  outside  to  the  veranda. 

It  was  almost  dark  by  this  time,  as  dark  as  it  ever  got 
on  these  nights ;  the  air  was  still  and  warm.  She  opened 
the  glass  door  and  went  out  and  sat  down  on  the  step. 
There  was  a  smell  of  water  in  the  air,  not  unpleasant,  but 
quite  un-English,  and  mixed  with  it  a  faint  smell  of 
flowers,  the  late  blooming  bulbs  have  little  scent  on  the 
whole ;  it  was  more  the  heavy  dew  than  the  flowers  them- 
selves which  one  could  smell.  It  was  very  quiet  out  here ; 
the  town,  at  no  time  noisy,  was  some  distance  away — so 
quiet  that  Julia  could  hear  the  ticking  of  Mr.  Gillat's 


THE  EXCURSION  65 

large  watch  in  her  belt.  She  pushed  it  further  down ;  she 
did  not  want  to  hear  it. 

She  propped  her  elbows  on  her  knees,  and  her  chin  on 
her  hands.  She  wished  she  had  not  seen  Rawson-Clew 
that  day ;  she  wished  she  was  not  here,  she  wished  there 
was  no  such  thing  as  a  blue  daffodil;  she  was  vaguely 
angry  and  dissatisfied,  but  not  willing  to  face  things.  It 
was  unlikely  that  the  man  had  seen  her,  unlikely  that  she 
would  see  him  again ;  but  he  was  incongruous  in  this  sim- 
ple life,  and  he  brought  forcibly  home  the  incongruity  of 
herself  and  her  errand.  She  had  come  for  the  blue  daf- 
fodil, it  was  no  good  pretending  she  had  not ;  she  told  her- 
self angrily,  as  she  had  told  herself  when  she  had  first 
looked  at  Johnny's  yellow-faced  watch,  that  she  was  going 
to  get  it  in  some  way  that  was  justifiable.  Only  it  was 
not  so  easy  to  believe  that  now  she  knew  more  about  it 
and  the  Van  Heigens.  But  she  must  have  it,  that  was  the 
argument  she  fell  back  on,  the  necessity  was  so  great  that 
she  was  justified  (the  Polkingtons  had  always  found  nec- 
essity a  justification  for  doing  things  that  could  be  any- 
how made  to  square  with  their  position). 

She  wished  she  had  not  been  for  the  excursion  to-day, 
that  she  lived  less  really  in  their  simple,  sincere  life.  She 
wished  from  her  heart  that  the  Van  Heigens  had  been 
different  sort  of  people — almost  any  other  sort,  then  she 
would  not  have  had  these  tiresome  feelings — Johnny  and 
Johnny's  watch,  Joost  Van  Heigen — there  was  something 
about  them  all  that  was  hatefully  embarrassing.  No  self- 
respecting  thief  robbed  a  child;  even  the  most  apathetic 
conscience  revolted  at  such  an  idea.  No  gentleman 
worthy  of  the  name  attacked  an  unarmed  man,  the  pre- 
paredness of  the  parties  made  all  the  difference  between 
murder  and  fair  fight.  Of  course,  in  the  abstract,  steal- 
ing was  stealing  under  all  conditions,  and  killing  killing, 


66  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

and  both  open  to  condemnation;  but  in  the  concrete,  in 
fact,  the  equality  of  the  two  persons  made  all  the  differ- 
ence, at  least  to  honour. 

Julia  moved  uneasily  and  looked,  without  seeing,  across 
the  dark  garden.  The  monotonous  sound  of  voices  floated 
out  indistinctly;  the  old  pair  in  the  sitting-room  were 
talking  in  the  lamplight,  Mevrouw  going  over  once  again 
the  little  incidents  of  the  day.  Joost  was  in  the  drawing- 
room  at  the  other  end  of  the  house ;  he  had  been  playing 
some  of  his  favourite  composer ;  he  had  stopped  now,  and 
was  doubtless  sorting  his  music  and  putting  it  away,  each 
piece  four-square  and  absolutely  neat.  Day  by  day,  and 
year  by  year,  they  lived  this  quiet  life,  with  a  drive  for 
a  rare  holiday  treat,  and  the  discovery  of  a  new  flower  as 
the  goal  of  all  hope  and  ambition.  Things  did  not  hap- 
pen to  them,  bad  things  that  needed  doubtful  remedies; 
they  had  never  had  to  scratch  for  their  living,  and  show 
one  face  outwards  and  another  in.  They,  none  of  them, 
ever  wanted  to  do  things ;  they  had  not  the  courage.  How 
much  of  virtue  was  lack  of  courage  and  a  desire  not  to 
be  remarkable? 

Julia  asked  herself  the  question  defiantly,  and  did  not 
hear  Joost  come  out  of  the  house.  He  was  carrying  a 
lantern,  and  was  going  to  make  his  nightly  round  of  the 
barns.  She  did  not  hear  his  step,  and  so  started  when  she 
saw  the  light  swing  across  the  ground  at  her  feet. 

He  was  quite  as  startled  to  see  her  as  she  was  to  see 
him,  but  his  greeting  was  a  very  usual  question  in  Hol- 
land, "Will  you  not  catch  cold  ?" 

She  shook  her  head,  and  he  asked,  "What  are  you 
doing?  Thinking?  Weaving  in  your  head  all  that  you 
have  seen  and  heard  to-day  ?" 

"No,"  she  answered ;    "I  was  thinking  about  courage." 

"Courage?"  he  repeated,  puzzled. 


THE    EXCURSION  67 

"Yes,  it  is  very  different  in  different  places ;  some  peo- 
ple are  afraid  to  tell  the  truth,  so  they  lie ;  and  some  are 
afraid  to  be  dishonest,  so  they  are  honest;  I  believe  it 
depends  partly  on  fashion." 

Joost  set  down  the  lantern  in  sheer  surprise.  "Such 
things  cannot  depend  on  fashion,"  he  said  severely. 

"I  am  not  so  sure,"  Julia  answered ;  "lots  of  things  you 
would  not  expect  depend  on  it.  I  know  people  who  some- 
times go  without  the  food  they  want  so  that  they  can 
buy  expensive  cakes  to  show  off  when  their  acquaintances 
come  to  tea — that's  silly,  isn't  it  ?  Then  I  know  other  peo- 
ple who  blush  if  a  pair  of  breeches,  or  something  equally 
inoffensive,  are  mentioned ;  that  seems  equally  silly.  One 
lot  of  people  is  ashamed  to  be  seen  eating  bread-and- 
cheese  suppers,  another  lot  is  ashamed  to  be  seen  walking 
off  the  side-walk,  and  with  no  gloves  on.  One  would 
hardly  expect  in,  yet  I  almost  believe  these  silly  little 
things  somehow  make  a  difference  to  what  the  people 
think  right  and  wrong." 

Joost  regarded  her  doubtfully,  though  he  could  only 
see  the  outline  of  her  face.  "Are  you  making  fun?"  he 
asked.  "I  do  not  know  when  you  are  making  fun;  I 
think  you  must  be  now.  Are  you  speaking  of  us?" 

"I  never  felt  less  like  making  fun  in  my  life,"  Julia 
answered  ignoring  the  last  question.  Something  in 
her  tone  struck  Joost  as  sad,  and  he  forgot  his  question 
in  sympathy. 

"I  am  sorry,"  he  said;  "you  are  unhappy,  and  I  have 
intruded  upon  you ;  will  you  forgive  me  ?  You  are  think- 
ing of  your  home,  no  doubt;  you  have  not  had  a  letter 
from  England  for  a  long  time." 

Julia  wished  he  did  not  notice  so  many  things.  "I  did 
not  expect  a  letter,"  she  said ;  "my  eldest  sister  was  mar- 
ried last  week,  there  would  be  no  time  to  write  to  me 


68  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

till  everything  was  over ;  most  likely  I  shall  hear  to-mor- 
row." 

"Is  your  sister  married  ?"  he  asked ;  "and  you  were  not 
able  to  be  present  ?" 

"It  is  too  far  to  go  home  from  here,"  Julia  said ;  then 
asked,  "Were  you  going  to  the  barns  ?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  suddenly  reminded  of  the  fact. 
Then  seeing  she  did  not  resume  her  seat  on  the  steps,  he 
ventured  diffidently,  "Will  you  come  too?" 

She  assented,  and  they  started  together  in  silence,  Joost 
thinking  her  homesick,  not  knowing  quite  what  to  say. 
When  they  came  to  the  first  of  the  dark  buildings  they 
went  in,  and  he  swung  the  lantern  round  so  that  their 
shadows  danced  fantastically.  Then  jhe  tried  various 
doors,  and  glanced  up  the  wall-ladder  to  the  square  open- 
ing which  led  to  the  floor  above.  There  was  no  need  to 
examine  the  place  minutely,  it  was  all  quiet  and  dark; 
if  there  had  been  any  one  about  they  would  certainly  have 
heard,  and  if  there  had  been  anything  smouldering — a 
danger  more  to  be  feared,  seeing  that  the  men  smoked 
everywhere — it  could  have  been  smelt  in  the  dry  air. 

"I  like  these  barns,"  Julia  said,  looking  round:  "they 
are  so  big  and  quiet  and  orderly,  somehow  so  respectable." 

"Respectable!"  he  repeated,  as  if  he  did  not  approve 
of  the  word.  "Is  that  what  you  like  ?  The  respectable  ?" 

"Yes,  in  its  place ;  and  its  place  is  here." 

"You  think  us  respectable  ?" 

"Well,  are  you  not  ?  I  think  you  are  the  most  respect- 
able people  in  the  world." 

She  led  the  way  through  to  the  next  barn  as  she  spoke. 
"You  are  going  here,  too,  I  suppose  ?"  she  said. 

"I  will  just  look  round,"  he  answered. 

They  went  on  together  until  they  came  to  the  last  barn 
of  all;  while  they  paused  there  a  moment  they  heard  a 


THE    EXCURSION  69 

rustling  and  movement  in  the  dark,  far  corner.  Joost 
started  violently,  then  he  said,  "It  is  a  rat,  you  must  not  be 
afraid;  it  will  not  run  this  way." 

"I  am  not  afraid,"  Julia  said  with  amusement.  "Do 
you  think  I  am  afraid  of  rats  ?" 

"Girls  often  are." 

"Well,  I  am  not,"  and  it  was  clear  from  her  manner 
that  she  spoke  the  truth. 

"Would  you  be  afraid  to  come  out  here  alone?"  he 
asked  curiously. 

"No,"  she  said;  "any  night  that  you  like  I  will  come 
here  alone,  go  through  the  barns  and  fasten  the  doors." 

"I  do  not  believe  there  are  many  girls  who  would  do 
that,"  he  said;  he  was  thinking  of  Denah  and  Anna. 

Julia  told  him  there  were  plenty  who  would.  As  they 
came  back,  stopping  to  fasten  each  door  after  them,  he 
remarked,  "I  think  girls  are  usually  brought  up  with  too 
much  protection ;  I  mean  girls  of  our  class,  they  are  too 
much  shielded ;  one  has  them  for  the  house  only ;  if  they 
were  flowers  I  would  call  them  stove-plants." 

Julia  laughed.  "You  believe  in  the  emancipation  of 
women  then?"  she  said;  "you  would  rather  a  woman 
could  take  care  of  herself,  and  not  be  afraid,  than  be 
womanly  ?" 

"No,"  he  answered ;  "I  would  like  them  to  be  both,  as 
you  are." 

They  had  come  outside  now ;  she  was  standing  in  the 
misty  moonlight,  while  he  stayed  to  fasten  the  last  door. 

"I?"  she  said;  "you  seem  to  think  me  a  paragon — 
clever,  brave,  womanly.  Do  you  know  what  I  really  am  ? 
I  am  bad ;  by  a  long  way  the  wickedest  person  you  have 
known." 

But  he  did  not  believe  her,  which  was  perhaps  not 
altogether  surprising. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DEBTOR  AND  CREDITOR 

VIOLET  POLKINGTON  was  married,  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence, the  financial  affairs  of  the  family  were  in  a  state 
that  can  only  be  described  as  wonderful.  They  were 
intricately  involved,  of  course,  and  there  was  no  chance 
of  their  being  clear  again  for  a  year  at  least;  but,  also, 
there  was  no  chance  of  them  being  found  out,  appearances 
were  better  than  ever. 

Mr.  Frazer  had  been  given  a  small  living,  whether  by 
the  deserved  kindness  of  fortune,  or  by  reason  of  his  own 
efforts,  or  the  Polkingtons,  is  not  known.  Anyhow  he 
had  it,  and  he  and  Violet  were  married  in  June  with  all 
necessary  eclat.  Local  papers  described  the  event  in 
glowing  terms,  appreciative  friends  said  it  was  the  pret- 
tiest wedding  in  years,  and  in  due  time  Cherie  wrote  and 
told  Julia  about  it.  The  Captain  also  wrote ;  his  point  of 
view  was  rather  different,  but  his  letter  filled  up  gaps  in 
Cherie's  information,  and  Julia's  own  past  experience 
filled  up  the  remaining  gaps  in  both. 

The  letters  came  on  Tuesday,  as  Julia  expected,  a  little 
before  dinner  time ;  she  was  still  reading  them  when  Mijn- 
heer  and  his  son  came  in  from  the  office.  Joost  smiled 
sympathetically  when  he  saw  she  had  them,  glad  on  her 
account;  and  she,  almost  unconsciously,  crumpled  to- 
gether the  sheets  that  lay  on  the  table  beside  her,  as  if  she 
were  afraid  they  would  betray  their  contents  to  him. 

70 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  71 

"You  have  good  news  from  home?"  said  Mijnheer; 
your  parents  are  well?" 

"Quite  well,  thank  you,"  Julia  answered.  She  had 
just  come  to  the  place  in  her  father's  letter  where  he 
regretted  that  such  very  light  refreshments  were  the 
fashion  at  wedding  receptions.  "It  is,  of  course,  as  your 
mother  says,  less  expensive,  but  at  such  a  time  who  would 
spare  expense — if  it  were  the  fashion?  I  assure  you 
I  had  literally  nothing  to  eat  at  the  time,  or  afterwards ; 
your  mother  thinking  it  advisable  as  soon  as  we  were 
alone,  to  put  away  the  cakes  for  future  visitors.  At  such 
a  time,  when  a  man's  feelings  are  nearly  touched,  he  needs 
support;  I  did  not  have  it,  and  I  cannot  say  that  I  have 
felt  myself  since." 

Julia  read  to  the  end  of  the  letter ;  Minjheer  had  by  this 
time  taken  up  a  paper,  but  Joost  watched  her  as  she 
folded  the  sheets.  He  did  not  speak,  it  seemed  he  would 
not  intrude  upon  her;  there  was  something  dog-like  in 
this  sympathy  with  what  was  not  understood.  She  felt 
vaguely  uncomfortable  by  reason  of  it,  and  spoke  to 
break  the  spell.  "Everything  went  off  very  well,"  she 
said. 

The  words  were  for  him  alone,  since  Minjheer  was 
now  reading,  and  also  knew  nothing  of  the  subject.  The 
smile  brightened  on  his  face.  "Did  it?"  he  answered. 
"I  am  very  glad.  They  must  have  missed  you  much,  and 
thought  often  of  you." 

Julia  nodded.  Cherie  had  said.  "I  must  say  I  think  it 
is  a  pity  you  were  not  here ;  it  is  important  to  have  some 
one  with  a  head  in  the  background ;  mother  and  I  had  to 
be  the  fore,  so  of  course  we  could  not  do  it ;  if  you  had 
been  here  several  things  would  have  gone  better,  and 
some  waste  have  been  saved." 

This  remark  Julia  did  not  communicate  to  Joost ;  she 


72  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

put  the  letter  in  her  pocket,  and  went  to  fetch  the  din- 
ner. After  dinner  she  was  to  go  on  an  errand  for  Mev- 
rouw.  It  would  take  a  long  time,  all  the  evening  in  fact, 
for  it  was  to  an  old  relative  who  lived  in  a  village  about 
three  miles  from  the  town.  Walking  was  the  only  way  of 
getting  to  the  place,  except  twice  a  week  when  a  little 
cargo  boat  went  down  the  canal,  and  took  some  hours 
about  it.  This  was  neither  the  day  nor  the  time  for  the 
boat,  Julia  would  have  to  walk ;  but,  as  she  assured  Mev- 
rouw,  she  much  preferred  it.  Accordingly,  as  soon  as 
dinner  was  finished,  she  was  given  a  great  many  mes- 
sages, mostly  of  a  condoling  nature,  for  the  old  lady  was 
ill  in  bed,  some  strengthening  soup,  and  a  little  bottle  of 
the  peach-brandy.  With  these  things  packed  in  a  sub- 
stantial marketing  basket,  she  started. 

Through  the  town  she  went  with  that  easy  step  and 
indifference  to  the  presence  of  other  people  that  Denah 
so  criticised,  faster  and  faster  her  spirits  rising.  Once 
or  twice  she  looked  in  at  the  low  windows  that  stood  open 
on  the  shady  side  of  the  street ;  there  she  saw  the  heads  of 
families  smoking  their  after-dinner  pipes,  while  their 
wives  and  daughters  sat  crocheting  and  watching  the 
passersby.  There  were  chairs  with  crimson  velvet  seats 
in  most  of  the  rooms,  and  funny  little  cabinet,  or  side- 
board things  of  bright  red  mahogany,  with  modern  Delft 
vases,  very  blue  indeed,  upon  them.  And  always  there 
was  a  certain  snugness,  perhaps  even  smugness,  about 
the  rooms.  At  least,  so  it  seemed  to  her  as  she  looked  in, 
almost  insolently  pleased  to  be  outside,  to  be  free  and 
alone. 

In  time  she  came  to  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  the  canal 
lay  on  her  right,  and  on  her  left,  flat  green  fields,  cut  up 
by  innumerable  ditches,  and  set  with  frequent  windmills, 
all  black  and  white,  and  mostly  used  for  maintaing  the 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  73 

water  level.  There  were  people  busy  in  the  fields,  but  to 
Julia  they  only  gave  the  idea  of  ants,  and  did  not  intrude 
upon  her  mind  in  the  least.  It  was  all  very  quiet  and 
green  around,  and  quiet  and  blue  above,  except  for  the 
larks  singing  rapturously.  Certainly  it  was  very  good  to 
be  away  from  the  Van  Heigens,  away  from  the  ceaseless 
little  reiteration  of  Mevrouw's  talk,  from  the  minute, 
punctilious  conventions,  from  Joost's  quiet  gaze,  from  the 
proximity  of  the  hateful,  necessary  blue  daffodil.  With  a 
violent  rebound  Julia  shook  off  the  feeling  that  had  been 
growing  on  her  of  late,  and  was  once  more  possibly  reck- 
less, but  certainly  free,  and  no  longer  under  the  spell  of 
her  surroundings.  Her  young  blood  coursed  quickly,  her 
eyes  shone,  the  basket  she  carried  grew  light ;  she  might 
have  sung  as  she  went  had  not  Nature,  in  withholding  the 
ability,  also  kindly  withheld  the  inclination. 

Soon  after  leaving  the  town,  a  side  road  cut  into  the 
main  one ;  a  waggon  was  lumbering  down  it  at  no  great 
pace,  but  just  before  the  branch  road  joined  the  main 
one  the  driver  cracked  his  whip  loudly,  so  that  his  team 
of  young  horses  started  forward  suddenly.  Too  suddenly 
for  the  comprehension  of  some  children  who  were  play- 
ing in  the  road ;  for  a  second  or  more  they  looked  at  the 
approaching  waggon,  then,  when  the  necessity  dawned 
upon  them,  they  ran  for  safety,  one  one  way,  one  another, 
and  the  third,  a  baby  boy,  like  a  chicken,  half  across  the 
way  to  the  right,  then,  after  a  scurry  in  the  middle,  back 
again  to  the  left,  under  the  horses'  feet. 

Julia  shouted  to  him,  but  in  the  excitement  of  the  mo- 
ment she  spoke  English,  and  not  Dutch,  though  it  hardly 
mattered,  for  the  little  boy  was  far  too  frightened  to  un- 
derstand anything.  It  certainly  would  have  fared  badly 
with  him  had  she  not  followed  up  her  cry  by  darting 
into  the  road,  seizing  him  by  the  shoulder,  and  flinging 


74  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

him  with  considerable  force  against  the  green  wayside 
bank.  She  was  only  just  in  time ;  as  it  was,  the  foremost 
horse  struck  her  shoulder  and  sent  her  rolling  into  the 
dust. 

For  an  instant  she  lay  there,  perilously  near  the  big 
grinding  wheels ;  an  almost  imperceptible  space,  yet  some- 
how long  enough  for  her  to  decide  quite  calmly  that  it 
was  impossible  to  scramble  to  her  feet  in  time,  so  she  had 
better  draw  her  legs  up  and  trust  to  the  wheels  missing 
her.  Then  suddenly  the  wheels  stopped,  and  some  one 
who  had  seized  the  horses'  heads  addressed  the  waggoner 
with  the  English  idiom  that  is  perhaps  most  widely 
known. 

Julia  heard  "damned  fool"  in  quite  unemotional  Eng- 
lish, and  almost  simultaneously  the  guttural  shrieks  of 
two  peasant  women  who  approached.  She  picked  herself 
up,  then  moving  two  paces  to  the  side,  stopped  to  put  her 
hat  straight  with  a  calmness  she  did  not  quite  feel.  There 
was  a  volley  of  exclamations  from  the  peasant  women, 
and  "Are  you  hurt?"  the  man  who  had  stopped  the  horses 
asked  her,  speaking  now  in  Dutch,  though  with  an  Eng- 
lish accent. 

"No,"  she  answered,  winking  back  the  water  which  had 
come  into  her  eyes  with  the  force  of  the  blow,  and  she 
turned  her  back  on  him  so  that  he  should  not  see  her 
doit. 

"My  good  women,"  she  said  shortly  to  the  peasants 
who,  with  upraised  hands  and  many  gestures,  stared  at 
her,  "there  is  nothing  the  matter,  there  is  no  reason  why 
you  should  stand  there  and  look  at  me ;  I  assure  you  no 
one  has  been  hurt,  and  no  one  is  going  to  be;  you  had 
much  better  go  on  your  way,  as  I  shall  do.  Good-after- 
noon." 

She  walked  a  few  paces  down  the  road,  not  in  the 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  75 

direction  she  intended  to  go  certainly,  but  she  was  too 
shaken  for  the  moment  to  notice  which  way  she  took,  and 
was  only  actuated  by  a  desire  to  get  away  and  put  an 
end  to  a  scene.  The  movement  and  the  words  were  not 
without  effect;  the  two  women,  a  good  deal  astonished, 
obeyed  automatically,  and,  picking  up  the  burdens  they 
had  set  down,  trudged  on  their  way,  not  realising  for 
some  time  how  much  offended  they  were  at  the  curt  be- 
haviour of  the  "mad  English."  The  children  by  this  time 
had  ceased  staring  and  returned  to  their  play;  the  wag- 
goner, muttering  some  surly  words,  drove  on.  Julia  sat 
on  the  bank  by  the  roadside,  and  tried  to  brush  the  dust 
from  her  dress.  The  Englishman,  after  making  some 
parting  remarks  to  the  waggoner,  this  time  in  Dutch, 
though  still  in  the  quiet,  drawling  voice  which  was  much 
at  variance  with  the  language,  had  gone  to  pick  up  the 
basket.  She  wished  she  had  thanked  him  for  his  timely 
assistance  when  she  first  scrambled  to  her  feet,  and  gone 
on  at  once,  then  she  could  have  done  this  necessary  sitting 
down  when  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  come  back  for  the 
stupid  basket  when  she  remembered  it.  But  now  she 
would  have  to  thank  him  formally,  and  perhaps  explain 
things,  and  say  expressly  that  she  was  not  hurt,  and  this 
while  she  was  shaken  and  dusty.  Mercifully  he  was  Eng- 
lish, and  so  would  not  expect  much;  she  looked  at  his 
back  with  satisfaction.  He  was  scarcely  as  tall  as  many 
Hollanders,  but  very  differently  built.  To  Julia,  looking 
at  him  rather  stupidly,  his  proportions,  like  his  clothes, 
appeared  very  nearly  perfect  after  those  she  had  been 
used  to  seeing  lately.  When  he  turned  and  she  saw  for 
the  first  time  his  face,  she  was  not  very  much  surprised, 
though  really  it  was  surprising  that  Rawson-Clew  should 
still  be  hereabouts. 
Their  eyes  met  in  mutual  recognition.  Afterwards  she 


76  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

wondered  why  she  did  not  pretend  to  be  Dutch,  it  ought 
to  have  been  possible ;  he  had  only  seen  her  once  before, 
and  her  knowledge  of  the  language  was  much  better  than 
his.  And  even  if  he  had  not  been  deceived,  he  would 
have  been  bound  to  acquiesce  to  her  pretence,  had  she 
persisted  in  it.  But  she  did  not  think  of  it  before  their 
mutual  recognition  had  made  it  too  late. 

"I  hope  you  are  not  hurt,"  he  said,  as  he  crossed  the 
road  with  the  basket. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "thanks  to  you " 

But  he,  evidently  sharing  her  dislike  for  a  fuss,  was 
even  more  anxious  than  she  not  to  dwell  on  that,  and 
dismissed  the  subject  quickly.  He  began  to  wipe  the  bot- 
tom of  the  basket,  from  which  soup  was  dripping,  talking 
the  while  of  the  carelessness  of  continental  drivers  and 
the  silliness  of  children  of  all  nations,  perhaps  to  give  her 
time  to  recover. 

She  agreed  with  him,  and  then  repeated  her  thanks. 

He  again  set  them  aside.  "It's  nothing,"  he  said;  "I 
am  glad  to  have  had  the  opportunity,  especially  since  it 
also  gives  me  the  opportunity  of  offering  you  some 
apology  for  an  unfortunate  misunderstanding  which  arose 
when  last  I  saw  you.  You  must  feel  that  it  needs  an 
apology." 

For  a  moment  Julia's  eyes  showed  her  surprise;  an 
apology  was  not  what  she  expected,  and,  to  tell  the  truth, 
it  did  not  altogether  please  her.  She  knew  that  she  and 
her  father  had  no  right  to  it  while  the  money  was  unpaid. 

"Please  do  not  apologise,"  she  said ;  "there  is  no  need, 
I  quite  understand." 

"I  was  labouring  under  a  false  impression,"  Rawson- 
Clew  explained. 

She  nodded,     "I  know,"  she  said,  "but  it  is  cleared  up 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  77 

now ;  no  one  who  spoke  with  my  father  could  possibly  im- 
agine he  lived  by  his  wits." 

Which  ambiguous  remark  may  have  been  meant  to 
apply  to  the  Captain's  mental  outfit  more  than  his  moral 
one.  When  Rawson-Clew  knew  Julia  better  he  came  to 
the  conclusion.it  probably  did,  at  the  time  he  thought 
it  wise  not  to  answer  it. 

"Here  is  your  basket,"  he  said;  "I  think  it  is  clean 
now." 

She  made  a  movement  to  take  it,  but  her  arm  was 
numb  and  powerless  from  the  blow  she  had  received;  it 
was  the  right  shoulder  which  had  been  struck,  and  that 
hand  was  clearly  useless  for  the  time  being ;  with  a  wince 
of  pain,  she  stretched  out  the  left. 

But  he  drew  the  basket  back.    "You  are  hurt,"  he  said. 

"No,  I'm  not,  nothing  to  speak  of;  it  only  hurts  me 
when  I  move  that  arm;  I  will  carry  the  basket  with  the 
other  hand." 

"How  far  have  you  to  go?" 

She  told  him  to  the  village  and  back. 

"You  had  better  go  straight  home  at  once,"  he  said. 

"I  can't  do  that,"  she  answered.  She  did  not  explain 
that  she  did  not  want  to,  the  pain  in  her  shoulder  not 
being  bad  enough  to  make  her  want  to  give  up  this  first 
hour  of  freedom.  "My  shoulder  does  not  hurt  if  I  do  not 
move  it,"  she  said ;  "I  can  carry  the  basket  with  the  other 
hand." 

"Perhaps  you  will  allow  me  to  carry  it  for  you?"  he 
suggested ;  "I  am  going  the  same  way." 

"No,  thank  you,"  she  returned.  "Thanks  very  much 
for  the  offer,  but  there  isn't  any  need ;  I  can  manage  quite 
well.  I  expect  you  will  want  to  go  faster  than  I  do." 
She  spoke  decidedly,  and  turned  about  quickly ;  as  she  did 


78  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

so,  she  caught  sight  of  the  bottle  of  peach-brandy  in  the 
grass. 

"Oh,  there's  the  brandy,"  she  exclaimed;  "I  mustn't 
go  without  that." 

He  fetched  the  fortunately  unbroken  bottle  and  put  it 
in  the  basket,  but  he  did  not  give  it  to  her. 

"I  will  carry  this,"  he  said ;  "if  our  pace  does  not  agree, 
if  you  would  prefer  to  walk  more  slowly,  I  will  wait  for 
you  at  the  beginning  of  the  village." 

Julia  rose  to  her  feet,  there  was  no  choice  left  to  her 
but  to  acquiesce;  from  her  heart  she  wished  he  would 
leave  the  basket  and  go  alone;  she  wished  even  that  he 
would  be  rude  to  her,  she  felt  that  then  he  would  have 
been  nearer  her  level  and  her  father's.  She  resented  alike 
his  presence  and  his  courtesy,  and  she  could  not  show 
either  feeling,  only  accept  what  he  offered  and  walk  by 
his  side,  just  as  if  no  money  was  owed,  and  no  letter, 
condescendingly  cancelling  the  debt,  had  been  written. 
She  grew  hot  as  she  thought  of  that  carefully  worded 
letter,  and  hot  when  she  thought  of  her  father's  relief 
thereat.  And  here,  here  was  the  man  who  must  have 
dictated  the  letter,  and  probably  paid  the  debt,  behaving 
just  as  if  such  things  never  existed.  He  was  walking 
with  her — she  could  not  give  him  ten  yards  start  and 
follow  him  into  the  village — and  making  polite  conversa- 
tions about  the  weather,  and  the  road,  and  the  quantity 
of  soup  that  had  been  spilled. 

She  pulled  herself  together,  and,  feeling  the  situation 
to  be  beyond  remedy,  determined  to  bear  herself  bravely, 
and  carry  it  off  with  what  credit  she  could.  She  glanced 
at  the  more  than  half-empty  soup  can.  "I  am  afraid  you 
are  right,"  she  said;  "there  is  a  great  deal  of  it  gone; 
still,  that  is  not  without  advantage — I  shall  be  sent  to  take 
some  more  in  a  day  or  two." 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  79 

"You  wish  that  ?"  he  inquired. 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "I  find  the  exercise  beneficial ;  I 
have  had  too  much  pudding  lately." 

He  looked  politely  surprised,  and  she  went  on  to  ex- 
plain. 

"It  is  very  wholesome,"  she  said,  "but  a  bit  stodgy;  I 
think  it  is  too  really  good  to  be  taken  in  such  large  quan- 
tities by  any  one  like  me.  It  is  unbelievably  good,  it 
makes  one  perfectly  ashamed  of  oneself ;  and  unbelievably 
narrow,  it  makes  one  long  for  bed-time." 

She  broke  off  to  smile  at  his  more  genuine  surprise,  and 
her  smile,  like  that  of  some  other  people  of  little  real 
beauty,  was  one  of  singular  charm. 

"Did  you  think  I  meant  actual  pudding?"  she  asked.  "I 
didn't;  I  meant  just  the  whole  life  here;  if  you  knew  the 
people  well,  the  real  middle  class  ones,  you  would  under- 
stand." 

"I  think  I  can  understand  without  knowing  them  well," 
he  said ;  "I  fancy  there  is  a  good  deal  of  pudding  about ; 
in  fact,  I  myself  am  feeling  its  rather  oppressive  in- 
fluence." 

"The  town  is  paved  with  it,"  Julia  declared.  "I  thought 
so  this  afternoon.  I  also  thought,  though  it  is  Tuesday, 
it  was  just  like  a  spring  Sunday ;  every  day  is  like  that." 

Rawson-Clew  suggested  that  many  people  appreciated 
spring  Sundays. 

"So  do  I,"  Julia  agreed,  "but  in  moderation ;  you  can't 
do  your  washing  on  Sunday,  nor  your  harvesting  in 
spring.  An  endless  succession  of  spring  Sundays  is  very 
awkward  when  you  have  got — well,  week-day  work  to 
do,  don't  you  think  so?" 

He  wondered  a  little  what  week-day  work  she  had  in 
her  mind,  but  he  did  not  ask.^ 

"Are  you  living  with  a  Dutch  family  ?"  he  inquired. 


8o  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

She  nodded.  "As  companion,"  she  said;  "sort  of  su- 
perior general  servant." 

"Indeed?  Then  it  must  have  been  you  I  saw  yester- 
day; I  thought  so  at  the  time;  you  were  driving  with 
some  Dutch  ladies." 

Julia  was  surprised  that  he  had  seen  and  recognised 
her.  "We  went  for  an  excursion  yesterday,"  she  said; 
"they  called  it  a  picnic." 

She  told  him  about  it,  not  omitting  any  of  the  points 
which  had  amused  her.  Could  Joost  have  heard  her,  he 
would  have  felt  that  his  suspicion  that  she  sometimes 
laughed  at  them  more  than  justified ;  but  she  did  not  give 
a  thought  to  Joost,  and  probably  would  not  have  paused 
if  she  had.  She  wanted  to  pass  the  present  time,  and  she 
was  rather  reckless  how,  so  long  as  Rawson-Clew  either 
talked  himself,  or  seemed  interested  in  what  she  said ;  also, 
it  must  be  admitted,  though  it  was  to  this  man,  it  was 
something  of  a  treat  to  talk  freely  again.  So  she  gave 
him  the  best  account  she  could,  not  only  of  the  excursion, 
but  of  other  things  too.  And  if  it  was  his  attention  she 
wanted,  she  should  have  been  satisfied,  for  she  appar- 
ently had  it,  at  first  only  the  interest  of  courtesy,  after- 
wards something  more;  it  even  seemed,  before  the  end, 
as  if  she  puzzled  him  a  little,  in  spite  of  his  years  and 
experience. 

He  found  himself  mentally  contrasting  the  life  at  the 
Van  Heigens',  as  she  described  it,  with  that  which  he  had 
imagined  her  to  have  led  at  Marbridge,  and,  now  that  he 
talked  to  her,  he  could  not  find  her  exact  place  in  either. 

"You  must  find  Dutch  conventionality  rather  trying," 
he  said  at  last. 

"I  am  not  used  to  it  yet,"  she  answered ;  "when  I  am 
it  will  be  no  worse  than  the  conventionality  at  home." 

He  felt  he  was  wrong  in  one  of  his  surmises;  clearly 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  81 

she  was  not  really  Bohemian.  "Surely,"  he  said,  "you 
have  not  found  these  absurd  rules  and  restrictions  in 
England?" 

"Not  the  same  ones;  we  study  appearances  one  way, 
and  they  do  another;  but  it  comes  to  the  same  thing,  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned.  One  day  I  hope  to  be  able  to  give 
it  up  and  retire ;  when  I  do  I  shall  wear  corduroy  breeches 
and  if  I  happen  to  be  in  the  kitchen  eating  onions  when 
people  come  to  see  me,  I  shall  call  them  in  and  offer  them 
a  share." 

"Rather  an  uncomfortable  ambition,  isn't  that?"  he  in- 
quired. "I  am  afraid  you  will  have  to  wait  some  time  for 
its  fulfilment,  especially  the  corduroy.  I  doubt  if  you  will 
achieve  that  this  side  the  grave,  though  you  might  per- 
haps make  a  provision  in  your  will  to  be  buried  in  it." 

Julia  laughed  a  little.  "You  think  my  family  would 
object?  They  would;  but,  you  see,  I  should  be  retiring 
from  them  as  well  as  from  the  world,  the  corduroy  might 
be  part  of  my  bulwarks." 

"I  don't  think  you  could  afford  it  even  for  that ;  do  you 
think  women  ever  can  afford  that  kind  of  disregard  for 
appearances  ?" 

"Plain  ones  can,"  she  said;  "it  is  the  only  compensa- 
tion they  have  for  being  plain ;  not  much,  certainly,  seeing 
what  they  lose,  but  they  have  it.  When  you  can  never 
look  more  than  indifferent,  it  does  not  matter  how  much 
less  you  look." 

"That  is  a  rather  unusual  idea,"  he  remarked;  "it  ap- 
pears sound  in  theory,  but  in  practice " 

"Sounder  still,"  she  answered  him. 

He  laughed.  "I'm  afraid  you  won't  make  many  con- 
verts here,"  he  said,  "where  nearly  every  woman  is  plain, 
and  according  to  your  experience,  every  one,  men  and 


82  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

women  too,  think  a  great  deal  of  looks;  at  all  events, 
correct  ones." 

"They  do  do  that,"  she  admitted;  "they  just  worship 
propriety  and  the  correct,  and  have  the  greatest  notion 
of  the  importance  of  their  neighbours'  eyes.  It  is  a  per- 
fect treat  to  be  out  alone,  and  not  have  to  regard  them — 
this  is  the  first  time  I  have  been  out  alone  since  I  have 
been  here." 

"Rather  hard ;  I  thought  every  one  had — er — time  off." 

"An  evening  out  ?"  she  suggested.  "I  believe  the  num- 
ber of  evenings  out  is  regulated  by  the  number  of  appli- 
cations for  the  post  when  vacant ;  cooks  could  get  more 
evenings  than  housemaids,  and  nursery  governesses  might 
naturally  expect  a  minus  number,  if  that  were  possible. 
There  would  be  lots  of  applications  for  my  post,  so  I 
can't  expect  many  evenings;  however,  I  have  thought 
of  a  plan  by  which  I  can  get  out  again  and  again !" 

"What  will  you  do?"  he  inquired. 

"I  shall  get  Denah — she  is  one  of  the  girls  who  went 
for  the  excursion — to  come  and  teach  Mevrouw  a  new 
crochet  pattern  after  dinner  of  a  day.  It  will  take  ages, 
Mevrouw  learns  very  slowly,  and  Denah  will  know  bet- 
ter than  to  hurry  matters;  she  admires  Mijnheer  Joost, 
the  Van  Heigens'  son,  and  she  will  be  only  too  delighted 
to  have  an  excuse  to  come  to  the  house." 

"And  if  she  is  there  you  will  have  a  little  leisure  ?  Some 
one  always  has  to  be  on  duty?  Is  that  it?" 

Julia  laughed  softly.  "If  she  is  there,"  she  said,  "she 
will  want  me  out  of  the  way,  and  I  am  not  satisfactorily 
out  of  the  way  when  I  am  anywhere  on  the  premises. 
Not  that  Mijnheer  Joost  talks  to  me  when  I  am  there,  or 
would  talk  to  her  if  I  were  not ;  she  just  mistrusts  every 
unmarried  female  by  instinct." 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  83 

A  girl's  instinct  in  such  matters  is  not  always  wrong," 
Rawson-Clew  observed. 

But  if  he  thought  Julia  had  any  mischievous  propensi- 
ties of  that  sort  he  was  mistaken.  "I  should  not  think  of 
interfering  in  such  an  affair,"  she  said;  "why,  it  would 
be  the  most  suitable  thing  in  the  world,  as  suitable  as  it  is 
for  my  handsome  and  able  sister  to  marry  the  ambitious 
and  able  nephew  of  a  bishop;  they  are  the  two  halves 
that  make  one  whole.  Denah  and  Joost  would  live  a  per- 
fectly ideal  pudding  life ;  he  with  his  flowers — that  is  his 
work,  you  know;  he  cares  for  nothing  besides,  really — 
and  she  with  her  housekeeping.  He  with  a  little  music 
for  relaxation,  she  with  her  neighbours  and  accomplish- 
ments ;  it  would  be  as  neat  and  complete  and  suitable  as 
anything  could  be." 

"And  that  commends  it  to  you?  I  should  have  im- 
agined that  what  was  incongruous  and  odd  pleased  you 
better." 

"I  like  that  too,"  she  was  obliged  to  admit,  "though 
best  when  the  people  concerned  don't  see  the  incongruity ; 
but  I  don't  really  care  either  way,  whether  things  are  in- 
congruous or  suitable,  I  enjoy  both,  and  should  never  in- 
terfere so  long  as  they  don't  upset  my  concerns  and  the 
end  in  view." 

He  looked  at  her  curiously ;  again  it  seemed  he  was  at 
fault ;  she  was  not  merely  a  wayward  girl  in  revolt  against 
convention,  saying  what  she  deemed  daring  for  the  sake 
of  saying  it,  and  in  the  effort  to  be  original.  She  was 
not  posing  as  a  Bohemian  any  more  than  she  was  truly 
one. 

"Have  you  usually  an  end  in  view?"  he  asked. 

"Have  not  you?"  she  answered,  turning  on  him  for  a 
moment  eyes  that  Joost  had  described  as  "eating  up  what 
they  looked  at."  "Of  course,"  she  said,  looking  away 


84  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

again,  "it  is  quite  natural,  and  very  possible,  that  you  are 
here  for  no  purpose,  and  I  am  here  for  no  purpose  too; 
you  might  quite  well  have  come  to  this  little  town  for 
amusement,  and  I  have  come  for  the  money  I  might  earn 
as  a  companion.  Or  you  might  have  drifted  here  by  acci- 
dent, as  I  might,  without  any  special  reason "  She 

stopped  as  she  spoke ;  they  were  fast  approaching  the  first 
house  of  the  village  now,  and  she  held  out  her  hand  for 
the  basket.  "I  will  take  it>"  she  said;  "I  have  a  very 
short  distance  to  go ;  thank  you  so  much." 

"Let  me  carry  it  the  rest  of  the  way,"  he  insisted;  "I 
am  going  through  the  village ;  we  may  as  well  go  the  rest 
of  the  way  together,  I  want  you  to  tell  me " 

But  Julia  did  not  tell  him  anything,  except  that  her 
way  was  by  the  footpath  which  turned  off  to  the  right. 
"I  could  not  think  of  troubling  you  further,"  she  said. 
"Thank  you." 

She  put  her  hand  on  the  basket,  so  that  he  was  obliged 
to  yield  it;  then,  with  another  word  of  thanks,  she  said 
"good-evening,"  and  started  by  the  path. 

For  a  moment  he  looked  after  her,  annoyed  and  in- 
terested against  his  will;  of  course,  she  meant  nothing 
by  her  words  about  his  purpose  and  her  own,  still  it  gave 
him  food  for  reflection  about  her,  and  the  apparent  in- 
congruity of  her  present  surroundings.  On  the  whole, 
he  was  glad  he  had  met  her,  partly  for  the  entertainment 
she  had  given,  and  partly  for  the  opportunity  he  had  had 
to  apologise. 

An  apology  was  due  to  her  for  the  affair  of  last  winter, 
he  felt  it;  though,  at  the  same  time,  he  could  not  hold 
himself  much  to  blame  in  the  matter.  He  had  gone  to 
Marbridge  to  see  into  his  young  cousin's  affairs  at  the 
request  of  the  boy's  widowed  mother.  The  affairs,  as 
might  have  been  expected,  were  in  muddle  enough,  and 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  85 

the  boy  himself  was  incorrigibly  silly  and  extravagant. 
The  whole  business  needed  tact  and  patience,  and  in  the 
end  had  not  been  very  satisfactorily  arranged ;  during  the 
process  Captain  Polkington's  name  had  been  mentioned 
more  than  once ;  he  figured,  among  other  ways,  of  spend- 
ing much  and  getting  little  in  return.  Somehow  or  other 
Rawson-CIew  had  got  the  impression  that  the  Captain 
was — well,  perhaps  pretty  much  what  he  really  had  come 
to  be ;  and  if  that  was  not  quite  what  his  wife  had  per- 
suaded herself  and  half  Marbridge  to  think  him,  surely 
no  one  was  to  blame.  The  mistake  made  was  about  the 
Captain's  wife  and  daughters  and  position  in  the  town; 
Rawson-CIew,  in  the  first  instance,  never  gave  them  a 
thought ;  the  Captain  was  a  detached  person  in  his  mind, 
and,  as  such,  a  possible  danger  to  his  cousin's  loose  cash. 
He  went  to  No.  27  to  talk  plainly  to  the  man,  not  to  tell 
him  he  was  a  shark  and  an  adventurer;  it  was  the  Cap- 
tain himself  who  translated  and  exaggerated  thus;  not 
even  to  tell  him  what  he  thought,  that  he  was  a  worth- 
less old  sponge,  but  to  make  it  plain  that  things  would 
not  go  on  as  they  had  been  doing.  The  girl's  interruption 
had  been  annoying,  so  ill-timed  and  out  of  place;  she 
ought  to  have  gone  at  once  when  he  suggested  it ;  she  had 
placed  him  and  herself,  too,  in  an  embarrassing  position ; 
yet,  at  the  same  time — he  saw  it  now,  though  he  did  not 
earlier — there  was  something  quaint  in  the  way  she  had 
both  metaphorically  and  actually  stood  between  him  and 
her  miserable  old  father.  He  had  dictated  the  subse- 
quent letter  to  the  Captain  more  on  her  account  than 
anything  else.  He  considered  that  by  it  he  was  making 
her  the  amend  honourable  for  the  unfortunate  interview 
of  the  afternoon,  as  well  as  closing  the  incident.  Of 
course,  nothing  real  was  forfeited  by  the  letter,  for  under 
no  circumstances  would  the  money  have  been  repaid;  he 


86  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

never  had  any  delusion  about  that.  From  which  it  ap- 
pears that  his  opinion  of  the  Captain  had  not  changed. 

As  for  his  opinion  of  Julia,  he  had  not  one  when  he 
first  saw  her,  except  that  she  had  no  business  to  be  there ; 
now,  however,  he  felt  some  little  interest  in  her.  There 
was  very  little  that  was  interesting  in  this  small  Dutch 
town ;  it  was  a  refreshing  change,  he  admitted  it  to  him- 
self, to  see  a  girl  here  who  put  her  clothes  on  properly ; 
something  of  a  change  to  meet  one  anywhere  who  did  not 
at  once  fall  into  one  of  the  well-defined  categories. 

Much  in  this  world  has  to  be  lain  at  the  door  of  oppor- 
tunity, and  idleness  in  youth,  and  ennui  and  boredom  in 
middle  ages.  Rawson-Clew  was  in  the  borderland  be- 
tween the  two,  and  did  not  consider  himself  open  to  the 
temptations  of  either.  He  was  not  idle,  he  had  things  to 
do ;  and  he  was  not  bored,  he  had  things  to  think  about ; 
but  not  enough  of  either  to  prevent  him  from  having  a 
wide  margin. 

When  he  met  Julia  again  there  was  no  reason  for  drop- 
ping the  acquaintance  renewed  through  necessity.  But 
also  there  was  no  opportunity,  on  that  occasion,  for  push- 
ing it  further,  even  if  there  had  been  inclination,  for  she 
was  not  alone. 

It  was  on  Saturday  evening ;  she  was  walking  down  the 
same  road,  much  about  the  same  time,  but  there  was  with 
her  a  tall,  fair  young  man,  with  a  long  face  and  loose 
limbs.  He  carried,  of  course,  an  umbrella — that  was  part 
of  his  full  dress — and  the  basket — he  walked  between 
her  and  the  cart  track.  She  bowed  sedately  to  Rawson- 
Clew,  and  the  young  man,  becoming  tardily  aware  of  it, 
took  off  his  hat,  rather  late,  and  with  a  sweeping  foreign 
flourish.  She  wore  a  pair  of  cotton  gloves,  and  lifted  her 
dress  a  few  inches,  and  glanced  shyly  up  at  her  escort  now 
and  then  as  he  talked.  They  were  speaking  Dutch,  and 


DEBTOR    AND    CREDITOR  87 

she  was  behaving  Dutch,  as  plain  and  demure  a  person  as 
it  was  possible  to  imagine,  until  she  looked  back,  then 
Rawson-Clew  saw  a  very  devil  of  mockery  and  mischief 
flash  up  in  her  eyes.  Only  for  a  second ;  the  expression 
was  gone  before  her  head  was  turned  again,  and  that  was 
decorously  soon.  But  it  had  been  there;  it  was  like  the 
momentary  parting  of  the  clouds  on  a  grey  day;  it 
illumined  her  whole  face — her  mind,  too,  perhaps — as  the 
eerie,  tricky  gleam,  which  is  gone  before  a  man  knows  it, 
lights  up  the  level  landscape,  and  transforms  it  to  some- 
thing new  and  strange. 

Rawson-Clew  walked  on  ahead  of  the  pair ;  he  had  to 
outpace  them,  since  he  was  bound  the  same  way,  and 
could  not  walk  with  them.  He  was  not  sure  that  he  was 
not  rather  sorry  for  Denah,  the  Dutch  girl ;  one  who  can 
laugh  at  herself  as  well  as  another,  and  all  alone,  too,  is 
he  thought,  rather  apt  to  enjoy  the  incongruous  more 
than  the  suitable. 


CHAPTER  VII 

HOW  JULIA  DID  NOT  GET  THE  BLUE  DAFFODIL 

VROW  VAN  HEIGEN  was  learning  a  new  crochet  pat- 
tern; one  did  it  in  thread  of  a  Sevres  blue  shade;  when 
several  long  strips  were  made,  one  sewed  them  together 
with  pieces  of  black  satin  between  each  two,  and  there  was 
an  antimacassar  of  severe  but  rich  beauty.  Denah  ex- 
plained all  this  as  she  set  Mevrouw  to  work  on  the  pat- 
tern ;  it  was  very  intricate,  quite  exciting,  because  it  was 
so  difficult ;  the  more  excited  the  old  lady  became  the  more 
mistakes  she  made,  but  it  did  not  matter ;  Denah  was  pa- 
tience itself,  and  did  not  seem  to  mind  how  much  time 
she  gave.  She  came  every  day  after  dinner  (that  is  to 
say,  about  six  o'clock),  and  when  she  came  it  was  fre- 
quently found  necessary  that  Julia  should  go  to  inquire 
after  the  invalid  cousin.  Denah  thought  herself  the  deep- 
est and  most  diplomatic  young  woman  in  Holland;  she 
even  found  it  in  her  heart  to  pity  Julia,  the  poor  compan- 
ion, who  she  used  as  a  pawn  in  her  romance.  The  which, 
since  it  was  transparently  obvious  to  the  pawn,  gave  her 
vast,  though  private,  delight. 

So  Julia  went  almost  daily  down  the  long  flat  road  to 
the  village,  and  very  often  Rawson-Clew  had  to  go  that 
way  too;  and  when  he  did,  his  time  of  going  being  of 
necessity  much  the  same  time  as  hers,  he  was  almost 
bound  to  walk  with  her.  There  was  but  one  way  to  the 
place ;  they  must  either  walk  together  in  the  middle  of  the 

88 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  89 

road,  or  else  separately,  one  side  of  it;  and  seeing  that 
they  were  of  the  same  nationality,  in  a  foreign  land,  and 
had  some  previous  acquaintance,  it  would  have  been  noth- 
ing short  of  absurd  to  have  done  the  latter.  So  as  often 
as  they  met  they  walked  together  and  talked  of  many 
things,  and  in  the  course  of  time  Rawson-Clew  came  to 
find  Julia's  company  a  good  deal  more  entertaining  than 
his  own ;  although  she  had  read  nothing  she  ought  to  have 
read,  seen  nothing  she  ought  to  have  seen,  and  occasional- 
ly both  thought  and  said  things  she  certainly  ought  not, 
and  was  not  even  conventionally  unconventional. 

They  usually  parted  at  the  footpath,  which  shortened 
her  way  a  little,  Rawson-Clew  giving  her  the  basket  there, 
and  going  down  the  road  alone ;  in  consequence  of  this  it 
was  some  time  before  she  knew  for  certain  where  it  was 
he  went,  although  she  had  early  guessed.  But  one  damp 
evening  she  departed  from  her  usual  custom.  It  had  been 
raining  heavily  all  day,  and  although  it  had  cleared  now, 
a  thick  mist  lay  over  the  wet  fields. 

"I  shall  have  to  go  round  by  the  road,"  she  said,  as  she 
looked  at  the  track. 

Rawson-Clew  agreed  with  her.  "I  am  rather  surprised 
that  you  came  out  at  all  this  evening,"  he  remarked.  "I 
should  have  thought  your  careful  friends  would  have  been 
afraid  of  colds  and  wet  feet." 

"Vrouw  Van  Heigen  was,"  Julia  answered,  "but  Denah 
and  I  were  not.  It  is  the  last  opportunity  we  shall  have 
for  a  little  while ;  Joost  goes  to  Germany  on  business  to- 
morrow." 

Rawson-Clew  laughed.  "Which  means,  I  suppose," 
he  said,  "that  she  will  neglect  the  crochet  work,  and  you 
will  have  to  superintend  it?  Not  very  congenial  to  you, 
is  it?" 

"Good  discipline,"  she  told  him. 


90  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"And  for  that  reason  to  be  welcomed  ?  Really  you  de- 
serve to  succeed  in  whatever  it  is  you  are  attempting ;  you 
do  not  neglect  details." 

"Details  are  often  important,"  she  said;  "stopping  at 
home  and  doing  crochet  work  while  Joost  is  in  Germany, 
for  instance,  may  help  me  a  good  deal." 

The  tone  struck  Rawson-Clew  as  implying  more  than 
the  words  said,  but  he  did  not  ask  for  an  interpretation, 
and  before  long  she  had  put  a  question  to  him.  They 
were  nearing  a  large  house  that  stood  far  back  from  the 
road  on  the  left  hand  side.  It  was  a  big  block  of  a  place, 
greyish-white  in  colour,  and  with  more  than  half  of  its 
windows  bricked  up,  indescribably  gloomy.  A  long, 
straight  piece  of  water  lay  before  it,  stretching  almost 
from  the  walls  to  the  road,  from  which  it  was  separated  by 
a  low  fence.  Tall,  thick  trees  grew  in  a  close  row  on 
either  side,  narrowing  the  prospect ;  a  path  ran  up  beside 
them  on  the  one  hand,  the  only  way  to  the  house,  but  in 
the  steamy  mist  which  lay  thick  over  everything  this  even- 
ing one  could  hardly  see  it,  and  it  looked  as  if  the  place 
were  unapproachable  from  the  front. 

Julia  glanced  curiously  towards  the  house ;  it  was  the 
only  one  of  any  size  or  possible  interest  in  the  village ;  the 
only  one,  she  had  decided  some  time  ago,  that  Rawson- 
Clew  could  have  any  reason  to  visit. 

As  they  approached  the  gate  she  ventured,  "You  go 
here,  do  you  not?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered ;  "to  Herr  Van  de  Greutz." 

"The  cousin  tells  me  he  is  a  great  chemist,"  Julia  said. 

"He  is,"  Rawson-Clew  agreed,  "and  one  much  absorbed 
in  his  work;  it  is  impossible  to  see  him  even  on  business 
except  in  the  evening." 

He  paused  by  the  gate  as  he  spoke.  "You  have  not 
much  further  to  go,  have  you?"  he  said.  "Will  you  ex- 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  91 

cuse  me  carrying  your  basket  further  ?  I  am  afraid  I  am 
rather  behind  my  time." 

Julia  took  the  basket,  assuring  him  she  had  no  distance 
to  carry  it,  but  her  eyes  as  she  said  it  twinkled  with 
amusement ;  it  was  not  really  late,  and  she  knew  it. 

"You  are  afraid  of  what  will  be  said  next,"  she  thought 
as  she  looked  back  at  the  man,  who  was  already  vanishing 
among  the  mists  by  the  lake.  And  the  thought  pleased 
her  somewhat,  for  it  suggested  that  Rawson-Clew  had  a 
respect  for  her  acumen,  and  also  that  her  private  fancy — 
that  the  business  which  brought  him  here  was  not  of  a 
kind  for  public  discussion — was  correct. 

The  cousin  was  better  that  evening ;  she  even  expressed 
hopes  of  living  through  the  summer,  a  thing  she  had  not 
done  for  more  than  three  days.  Julia  cheered  and  en- 
couraged her  in  this  belief  (which,  indeed,  there  was  every 
reason  to  think  well  founded)  and  gave  her  the  messages 
and  dainties  she  had  brought.  After  that  they  talked  of 
the  weather,  which  was  bad;  and  the  neighbours,  who, 
on  the  whole,  were  good.  Julia  knew  most  of  them  by 
name  by  this  time — the  kind  old  Padre  and  his  wife ;  the 
captain  of  the  little  cargo-boat,  who  drank  a  little,  and 
his  generous  wife,  who  talked  a  great  deal ;  the  fat  woman 
who  kept  fowls,  and  the  thin  one  who  sometimes  stole  the 
eggs.  Julia  had  heard  all  about  them  before,  but  she 
heard  over  again,  and  a  little  about  the  great  chemist, 
Herr  Van  de  Greutz,  too. 

This  great  man  was  naturally  only  a  name  to  the  in- 
valid and  her  friends,  but  they  had  always  plenty  to  say 
about  him.  He  was  so  distinguished  that  all  the  village 
felt  proud  to  have  him  live  on  their  borders,  and  so  dis- 
agreeable that  they  were  decidedly  in  awe  of  him.  Of  his 
domestic  arrangements  there  was  always  talk ;  he  lived 
in  his  great  gloomy  house  with  an  old  housekeeper,  whom 


92 

Julia  knew  by  sight,  and  a  young  cook,  whom  she  did  not ; 
the  former  was  a  permanency,  the  latter  very  much  the 
reverse,  it  being  difficult  to  find  a  cook  equal  to  his  de- 
mands who  would  for  any  length  of  time  endure  the  short- 
ness of  the  housekeeper's  temper,  and  the  worse  one  of 
her  master.  The  domestic  affairs  of  the  chemist  were  a 
favourite  subject  of  gossip,  but  sometimes  his  attainments 
came  in  for  mention  too;  they  did  to-night,  the  cousin 
being  in  a  garrulous  mood.  According  to  her,  the  great 
man  had  done  everything  in  science  worth  mentioning, 
and  was  not  only  the  first  chemist  in  Holland,  but  in  all 
the  world ;  he  looked  down  on  all  others,  she  said,  regard- 
ing two  Germans  only  as  anything  approaching  his  peers, 
all  the  English  and  French  being  nothing  to  him.  He  had 
discovered  a  great  many  things,  dyes,  poisons,  and  ex- 
plosives ;  of  the  last  he  had  recently  perfected  one  which 
was  twenty-two  times  stronger  than  anything  before 
known.  Its  nature  was,  of  course,  a  secret,  but  it  would 
eventually  raise  the  little  army  of  Holland  far  above  those 
of  all  other  nations. 

Julia  listened,  but  especially  to  the  last  piece  of  infor- 
mation, which  struck  her  as  being  the  one  most  likely  to 
prove  interesting.  Soon  after  hearing  it,  however,  she 
was  obliged  to  go.  She  made  her  farewells,  and  received 
messages  of  affection  for  Mevrouw,  condolence  for  Mijn- 
heer — who  had  a  cold — and  good  wishes  for  Joost's  jour- 
ney. Then  she  started  homewards,  with  a  light  basket 
and  a  busy  mind. 

It  did  not  take  her  very  long  to  decide  that  if  there  was 
any  truth  in  this  talk  of  Van  de  Greutz's  achievements,  it 
must  be  the  last  mentioned — the  explosive — which 
brought  Rawson-Clew  here.  Her  judgment  of  men,  for 
working  purposes  at  least,  was  quick  and  fairly  accurate, 
necessity  and  experience  had  helped  Nature  to  make  it  so. 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL      /  93 

There  were  one  or  two  things  in  connection  with  Rawson- 
Clew  which  were  very  clear  to  her,  he  was  not  a  scientist 
pure  and  simple ;  she  had  never  met  one,  but  she  knew  he 
was  not  one,  and  so  was  not  likely  to  be  interested  in  the 
great  chemist  for  chemistry  only.  Nor  was  he  a  com- 
mercial man ;  neither  his  instincts  nor  his  abilities  lay  in 
that  direction ;  it  was  not  a  new  process,  not  a  trade  secret 
which  brought  him  here.  Indeed,  even  though  he  might 
appreciate  the  value  of  such  things,  he  would  never  dream 
of  trying  to  possess  himself  of  them. 

Julia  understood  perfectly  the  scale  in  which  such  acts 
stood  to  men  like  Rawson-Clew.  To  attempt  to  master 
a  man's  discovery  for  one's  own  ends  (as  in  a  way  she 
was  doing)  was  impossible,  rank  dishonesty,  never  even 
contemplated;  to  do  it  for  business  purposes — well,  he 
might  admit  it  was  sometimes  necessary  in  business 
— commerce  had  its  morality  as  law,  and  the  army  had 
theirs — but  it  was  not  a  thing  he  would  ever  do  himself, 
he  would  not  feel  it  exactly  honourable.  But  to  attempt 
to  gain  a  secret  for  national  use  was  quite  another  thing, 
not  only  justifiable  but  right,  more  especially  if,  as  was 
probably  the  case,  the  attempt  was  in  fulfilment  of  a  direct 
order.  If  after  Herr  Van  de  Greutz  had  a  secret  worth 
anything  to  England,  it  was  that  which  had  brought  Raw- 
son-Clew to  the  little  town.  She  was  as  sure  of  it  as  she 
was  that  it  was  the  blue  daffodil  which  had  brought  her. 

The  hateful  blue  daffodil!  Daily,  to  possess  it  grew 
more  imperative.  The  intercourse  with  this  man,  the 
curious  seeming  equality  that  was  being  established  be- 
tween them,  cried  aloud  for  the  paying  of  the  debt,  and 
the  establishing  of  the  reality  of  equality.  She  longed  al- 
most passionately  to  be  able  to  regard  herself,  to  know 
that  the  man  had  reason  to  regard  her,  as  his  equal.  And 
yet  to  possess  the  thing  seemed  daily  more  difficult ;  more 


94  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

and  more  plainly  did  she  see  that  bribery,  persuasion,  ca- 
jolery were  alike  useless.  The  precious  bulb  could  be 
got  in  one  way,  and  one  only ;  it  would  never  fall  into  her 
hands  by  skilful  accident,  or  nicely  stimulated  generosity ; 
she  must  take  it,  or  she  must  do  without  it.  She  must  get 
fr  for  herself  as  deliberately  as,  in  all  probability,  Rawson- 
Clew  meant  to  get  Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  secret. 

She  raised  her  head  and  looked  at  the  flat,  wet  land- 
scape with  unseeing  eyes  that  were  contemptuous.  How 
different  two  not  dissimilar  acts  could  be  made  to  look! 
If  she  took  the  daffodil — and  she  would  have  unique  op- 
portunity to  try  during  the  next  two  days — Rawson-Clew 
would  regard  her  as  little  better  than  a  common  thief; 
that  is,  if  he  happened  to  know  about  it.  She  winced  a 
little  as  she  thought  of  the  faint  expression  of  surprise 
the  knowledge  would  call  up  in  his  impassive  face  and 
cold  grey  eyes.  She  could  well  imagine  the  slight  differ- 
ence in  his  manner  to  her  afterwards,  scarcely  noticeable 
to  the  casual  observer,  impossible  to  be  overlooked  by  her. 
She* told  herself  she  did  not  care  what  he  thought;  but 
she  did.  Pride  was  grasping  at  a  desired,  but  impossible, 
equality  with  this  man,  and  here,  were  the  means  used 
only  known,  was  the  nearest  way  to  lose  it.  At  times  he 
had  forgotten  the  gap  of  age  and  circumstances  between 
them — really  forgotten  it,  she  knew,  not  only  ignored  it 
in  his  well-bred  way.  He  had  for  a  moment  really  re- 
garded her  as  an  equal;  not,  perhaps,  as  he  might  the 
women  of  his  class,  rather  the  men  of  like  experience  and 
attainments  with  himself.  That  was  not  what  she  want- 
ed, but  she  recognised  plainly  that  in  grasping  at  a  shad- 
owy social  feminine  equality  by  paying  the  debt,  she  might 
well  lose  this  small  substance  of  masculine  equality,  for 
there  is  no  gulf  so  unbridgable  between  man  and  man  as 
a  different  standard  of  honour. 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  95 

But  after  all,  she  asked  herself,  what  did  it  matter? 
He  need  not  know;  she  would  pay,  fulfilling  her  word, 
and  proving  her  father  an  honest  man  (which  he  was 
not)  ;  the  debtor  could  not  know  how  it  was  done.  And 
if  he  did,  what  then  ?  If  she  told  him  herself — he  would 
know  no  other  way — she  would  do  it  deliberately  with  the 
set  purpose  of  tarring  him  with  the  same  brush;  she 
would  show  him  how  his  attempt  on  Herr  Van  de  Greutz 
might  also  be  made  to  look.  He  would  not  be  convinced, 
of  course,  but  at  bottom  the  two  things  were  so  related 
that  it  would  be  surprising  if  she  did  not  get  a  few  shafts 
home.  He  would  not  show  the  wounds  then,  but  they 
would  be  there ;  they  would  rankle ;  there  would  be  some 
humiliation  for  him,  too.  A  curious  light  crept  into  her 
eyes  at  the  thought ;  she  was  surer  of  being  able  to  reduce 
him  than  of  exalting  herself,  and  it  is  good,  when  circum- 
stances prevent  one  from  mounting,  to  drag  a  superior  to 
the  level  of  one's  humiliation.  For  a  moment  she  under- 
stood something  of  the  feelings  of  the  brute  mob  that 
throws  mud. 

By  this  time  she  had  reached  the  town,  though  almost 
without  knowing  it ;  so  deep  was  she  in  her  thoughts  that 
she  did  not  see  Joost  coming  towards  her.  He  had  been 
to  escort  Denah,  who  had  thoughtfully  forgotten  to  pro- 
vide herself  with  a  cloak ;  he  was  now  coming  back,  carry- 
ing the  wrap  his  mother  had  lent  her. 

Julia  started  when  she  became  aware  of  him  just  in 
front  of  her.  She  was  not  pleased  to  see  him;  she  had 
no  room  for  him  in  her  mind  just  then;  he  seemed  in- 
congruous and  out  of  place.  She  even  looked  at  him  a 
little  suspiciously,  as  if  she  were  afraid  the  fermenting 
thoughts  in  her  brain  might  make  themselves  felt  by  him. 

He  turned  and  walked  beside  her.  "I  have  been  to  take 
home  Miss  Denah,"  he  explained.  "I  saw  you  a  long 


96  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

way  off,  and  thought  perhaps  I  might  escort  you ;  but  you 
are  angry ;  I  am  sorry." 

Julia  could  not  forbear  smiling  at  him.  "I  am  not 
angry,"  she  said,  as  she  would  to  a  child;  "I  was  only 
thinking." 

"Of  something  unpleasant,  then,  that  makes  you 
angry  ?" 

"No;  of  something  that  must  have  been  enjoyable.  I 
was  thinking  how,  in  the  French  Revolution,  the  women 
of  the  people  must  have  enjoyed  throwing  mud  at  the 
women  of  the  aristocrats;  how  they  must  have  liked 
scratching  the  paint  and  the  skin  from  their  faces,  and 
tearing  their  hair  down,  and  their  clothes  off." 

Joost  stared  in  amazement.  "Do  you  call  that  not  un- 
pleasant?" he  said.  "It  is  the  most  grievous,  the  most 
pitiable  thing  in  all  the  world." 

"For  the  aristocrats,  yes,"  Julia  agreed;  "but  for  the 
others?  Can  you  not  imagine  how  they  must  have 
revelled  in  it  ?" 

Joost  could  not ;  he  could  not  imagine  anything  violent 
or  terrible,  and  Julia  went  on  to  ask  him  another  ques- 
tion, which,  however,  she  answered  herself. 

"Do  you  know  why  the  women  of  the  people  did  it? 
It  was  not  only  because  the  others  had  food  and  they  had 
not;  I  think  it  was  more  because  the  aristocrats  had  a 
thousand  other  things  that  they  had  not,  and  could  never 
have — feelings,  instincts,  pleasures,  traditions — which 
they  could  not  have  had  or  enjoyed  even  if  they  had  been 
put  in  palaces  and  dressed  like  queens.  It  was  the  fact 
that  they  could  never,  never  rise  to  them,  that  helped  to 
make  them  so  furious  to  pull  all  down." 

There  was  a  sincerity  of  conviction  in  her  tone,  but 
Joost  only  said,  "You  cannot  enjoy  to  think  of  such 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  97 

things ;  it  is  horrible  and  pitiable  to  remember  that  human 
creatures  became  so  like  beasts." 

Julia's  mood  altered.  "Pitiable,  yes;  perhaps  you  are 
right.  After  all,  we  are  pitiful  creatures,  and,  under  the 
thin  veneer,  like  enough  to  the  beasts."  Then  she  changed 
the  subject  abruptly,  and  began  to  talk  of  his  flowers. 

But  he  was  not  satisfied  with  the  change ;  instinctively 
he  felt  she  was  talking  to  his  level.  "Why  do  you  al- 
ways speak  to  me  of  bulbs  and  plants?"  he  said.  "Do 
you  think  I  am  interested  in  nothing  else  ?" 

"No,"  she  said;  "I  speak  of  them  because  I  am  inter- 
ested. Do  you  not  believe  me?  It  is  quite  true;  you 
yourself  have  said  that  I  should  make  a  good  florist ;  al- 
ready I  have  learnt  a  great  deal,  although  I  have  not  been 
here  long,  and  knew  nothing  before  I  came." 

"That  is  so,"  he  admitted;  "you  are  very  clever. 
Nevertheless,  I  do  not  think,  if  you  were  alone  now,  you 
would  be  thinking  of  plants.  You  were  not  when  I  met 
you ;  it  was  the  Revolution,  or,  perhaps,  human  nature — 
you  called  it  the  Revolution  in  a  parable,  as  you  often 
do  when  you  speak  your  thoughts." 

"Why  do  you  trouble  about  my  thoughts?"  Julia  said, 
impatiently.  "How  do  you  know  what  I  think?" 

"Perhaps  I  don't,"  he  answered;  "only  sometimes  it 
seems  to  me  your  voice  tells  me  though  your  words  do 
not." 

"My  voice?" 

"Yes ;  it  is  full  of  notes  like  a  violin,  and  speaks  more 
than  words.  I  suppose  all  voices  have  many  notes  really, 
but  people  do  not  often  use  them;  they  use  only  a  few. 
You  use  many;  that  is  why  I  like  to  listen  to  you  when 
you  talk  to  my  parents,  or  any  one.  It  is  like  a  master 
playing  on  an  instrument ;  you  make  simple  words  mean 
much,  more  than  I  understand  sometimes ;  you  can  caress 


98  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

and  you  can  laugh  with  your  voice ;  I  have  heard  you  do 
it  when  I  have  not  been  able  to  understand  what  you 
caress,  or  at  what  you  laugh,  any  more  than  an  ignorant 
person  can  understand  what  the  violin  says,  although  he 
may  enjoy  to  hear  it.  To-night  you  do  not  caress  or 
laugh ;  there  is  something  black  in  your  thoughts." 

"That  is  human  nature,  as  you  say,"  Julia  said  shortly, 
ignoring  the  comment  on  her  voice.  "Human  nature  is 
a  hateful,  ugly  thing;  there  is  no  use  in  thinking  about 
it." 

"It  has  certainly  fallen,"  Joost  allowed;  "but  I  have 
sometimes  thought  perhaps,  if  it  were  not  so,  it  would  be 
a  little — a  very  little — monotonous." 

"You  would  not  find  it  dull,"  Julia  told  him.  "I  be- 
lieve you  would  not  have  got  on  very  well  in  the  Garden 
of  Eden,  except  that,  since  all  the  herbs  grew  after  their 
own  kind,  there  would  be  no  opportunity  to  hybridise 
them." 

But  the  mystery  of  production  and  generation,  even  in 
the  vegetable  world,  was  not  a  subject  that  modesty  per- 
mitted Joost  to  discuss  with  a  girl.  His  manner  showed 
it,  to  her  impatient  annoyance,  as  he  hastily  introduced 
another  aspect  of  man's  first  estate.  "If  we  were  not 
fallen,"  he  added,  "we  should  have  no  opportunity  to  rise. 
That,  indeed,  would  be  a  loss ;  is  it  not  the  struggle  which 
makes  the  grand  and  fine  characters  which  we  admire?" 

"I  don't  admire  them,"  Julia  returned;  "I  admire  the 
people  who  are  born  good,  because  they  are  a  miracle." 

He  stopped  to  unfasten  the  gate ;  it  did  not  occur  to  him 
that  she  was  thinking  of  himself. 

"I  cannot  agree  with  you,"  he  said,  as  they  went  up  the 
drive  together.  "Rather,  I  admire  those  who  have  fought 
temptation,  who  are  strong,  who  know  and  understand 
and  have  conquered ;  they  inspire  me  to  try  and  follow. 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  99 

What  inspiration  is  there  in  the  other?  Consider  Miss 
Denah,  for  an  example ;  she  has  perhaps  never  wanted  to 
do  more  wrong  than  to  take  her  mother's  prunes,  but  is 
there  inspiration  in  her?  She  is  as  soft  and  as  kind  as 
a  feather  pillow,  and  as  inspiring.  But  you — you  told  me 
once  you  were  bad ;  I  did  not  believe  you ;  I  did  not  un- 
derstand, but  now  I  know  your  meaning.  You  have  it  in 
your  power  to  be  bad  or  to  be  good ;  you  know  which  is 
which,  for  you  have  seen  badness,  and  know  it  as  men 
who  live  see  it.  You  have  fought  with  it  and  conquered ; 
you  have  struggled,  you  do  struggle,  you  have  strength  in 
you.  That  is  why  you  are  like  a  lantern  that  is  sometimes 
bright  and  sometimes  dim,  but  always  a  beacon." 

"I  am  nothing  of  the  sort,"  Julia  said  sharply.  They 
were  in  the  dense  shadow  of  the  trees,  so  he  could  not 
see  her  face,  but  her  voice  sounded  strange  to  him.  "You 
do  not  know  what  you  are  talking  about,"  she  said ;  "hard- 
ly in  my  life  have  I  asked  myself  if  a  thing  is  right  or 
wrong — do  you  understand  me?  Right  and  wrong  are 
not  things  I  think  about." 

"It  is  quite  likely,"  he  said,  serenely;  "different  per- 
sons have  different  names  for  the  same  things,  as  you 
have  once  said;  one  calls  it  'honourable'  and  'dishonour- 
able,' and  another  'right'  and  'wrong,'  and  another  'wise' 
and  'unwise.'  But  it  is  always  the  same  thing ;  it  means 
to  choose  the  more  difficult  path  that  leads  to  the  greater 
end,  and  leave  the  other  way  to  the  lesser  and  smaller 
souls." 

Julia  caught  her  breath  with  a  little  gasping  choke. 
Joost  turned  and  looked  at  her,  puzzled  at  last ;  but  though 
they  had  now  reached  the  house,  and  the  lamplight  shone 
on  her,  he  could  make  out  nothing ;  she  brushed  past  him 
and  went  in  quickly. 

The  next  day  Joost  started  for  Germany.     It  rained 


TOO  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

more  or  less  all  day,  and  Julia  did  not  go  out,  except  for 
half-an-hour  during  the  morning,  when  she  was  obliged 
to  go  marketing.  She  met  Denah  bound  on  the  same 
errand,  and  heard  from  her,  what  she  knew  already,  that 
she  would  not  be  able  to  come  and  superintend  the  crochet 
that  day.  And  being  in  a  black  and  reckless  mood,  she 
had  the  effrontery  to  laugh  a  silent,  comprehending  little 
laugh  in  the  face  of  the  Dutch  girl's  elaborate  explana- 
tions. Denah  was  a  good  deal  annoyed,  and,  though  her 
self-esteem  did  not  allow  her  to  realise  the  full  meaning 
of  the  offence,  she  did  not  forget  it. 

Julia  went  home  with  her  purchases,  and  spent  the  rest 
of  the  day  in  the  usual  small  occupations.  It  was  an  in- 
terminably long  day  she  found.  She  contrived  to  hide 
her  feelings,  however,  and  behaved  beautifully,  giving 
the  suitable  attention  and  suitable  answers  to  all 
Mevrouw's  little  remarks  about  the  weather,  and  Joost's 
wet  journey  (though,  since  he  was  in  the  train,  Julia  could 
not  see  that  the  wet  mattered  to  him),  and  about  Mijn- 
heer's  cold,  which  was  very  bad  indeed. 

The  day  wore  on.  Julia  missed  Joost's  presence  at 
meals ;  they  were  not  in  the  habit  of  talking  much  to  each 
other  at  such  times,  it  is  true,  but  she  always  knew  when 
she  talked  to  his  parents  that  he  was  listening,  and  putting 
another  and  fuller  interpretation  on  her  words.  That 
was  stimulating  and  pleasant  too;  it  was  a  new  form  of 
intercourse,  and  she  did  not  pretend  she  did  not  enjoy  it 
for  itself,  as  well  as  for  the  opportunity  it  gave  her  of 
probing  his  mind  and  trying  different  ideas  on  him. 

At  last  dinner  was  over,  and  tea;  the  tea  things  were 
washed,  and  the  long-neglected  fancy  work  brought  out. 
A  clock  in  the  passage  struck  the  hour  when,  of  late,  after 
an  exhilirating  verbal  skirmish  with  the  anxious  Denah, 
she  had  set  out  for  the  village  and  Rawson-Clew. 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  101 

She  did  not  pretend  to  herself  that  she  did  not  enjoy 
that  too,  she  did  immensely ;  there  was  a  breath  from  the 
outside  world  in  it;  there  was  sometimes  the  inspiring 
clash  of  wits,  of  steel  on  steel,  always  the  charm  of  edu- 
cated intercourse  and  quick  comprehension.  To-night 
there  was  nothing ;  no  exercise  to  stir  the  blood,  no  soli- 
tude to  stimulate  the  imagination,  no  effort  of  talk  or  un- 
derstanding to  rouse  the  mind.  Nothing  but  to  sit  at 
work,  giving  one-eighth  of  attention  to  talk  with  Mevrouw 
— more  was  not  needed,  and  the  rest  to  the  blue  daffodils 
that  lay  securely  locked  up  in  a  place  only  too  well  known. 

Evening  darkened,  grey  and  dripping,  to-night,  supper- 
getting  time  came,  and  the  hour  for  locking  up  the  barns. 
Mijnheer,  snuffling  and  wheezing  a  good  deal,  put  on  a 
coat,  a  mackintosh,  a  comforter,  a  pair  of  boots  and  a  pair 
of  galoshes ;  took  an  umbrella,  the  lantern,  a  great  bunch 
of  keys,  and  went  out.  Julia  watched  him  go,  and  said 
nothing ;  she  had  been  the  rounds  a  good  many  times  with 
Joost  now ;  the  family  had  talked  about  it  more  than  once, 
and  about  her  bravery  with  regard  to  rats  and  robbers. 
Neither  of  the  old  people  would  have  been  surprised  if 
she  had  volunteered  to  go  in  place  of  Mijnheer,  even  if  his 
cold  had  not  offered  a  reason  for  such  a  thing.  But  she 
did  not  do  it;  he  went  alone,  and  the  blue  daffodil  bulbs 
lay  snug  in  their  locked  place. 

The  next  day  it  still  rained,  but  a  good  deal  harder. 
There  was  a  sudden  drop  in  the  temperature,  too,  such 
as  one  often  finds  in  an  English  summer.  The  Van 
Heigens  did  not  have  a  fire  on  that  account,  their  stoves 
always  kept  a  four  months'  sabbath ;  the  advent  of  a  snow- 
storm in  July  would  not  have  been  allowed  to  break  it. 
Mijnheer's  cold  was  decidedly  worse ;  towards  evening  it 
grew  very  bad.  He  came  in  early  from  the  office,  and 
sat  and  shivered  in  the  sitting-room  with  Julia  and  his 


102  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

wife,  who  was  continuing  the  crochet  unaided,  and  so  lay- 
ing up  much  future  work  for  Denah.  At  last  it  was  con- 
sidered dark  enough  for  the  lamp  to  be  lighted.  Julia  got 
up  and  lit  it,  and  drew  the  blind,  shutting  out  the  grey 
sheet  of  the  canal  and  the  slanting  rain. 

"Dear  me,"  Mevrouw  said  once  again,  "how  bad  the 
rain  must  be  for  Joost!" 

Julia  agreed,  but  reminded  her — also  once  again — that 
it  was  possibly  not  raining  in  Germany. 

Mijnheer  looked  up  from  his  paper  to  remark  that  the 
weather  was  very  bad  for  the  crops. 

"It  is  bad  for  every  one,"  his  wife  rejoined ;  "but  worse 
of  all  for  you.  You  should  be  in  bed.  Indeed,  it  is  not 
fit  that  you  should  be  up;  the  house  is  like  a  cellar  this 
evening." 

Mijnheer  did  not  suggest  the  remedy  of  a  fire ;  he,  too, 
shared  the  belief  that  stoves  should  not  be  lighted  before 
the  appointed  time ;  he  only  protested  at  the  idea  of  bed. 
"Pooh!"  he  said.  "Make  myself  an  invalid  with  Joost 
away !  Will  you  go  and  nurse  my  nose,  and  put  plasters 
on  my  chest  ?  Go  to  bed  now,  do  you  say  ?  No,  no,  my 
dear,  I  will  sit  here;  I  am  comfortable  enough;  I  read 
my  paper,  I  smoke  my  cigar ;  by  and  by,  I  go  out  to  see 
that  my  barns  are  all  safe  for  the  night." 

But  at  this  Mevrouw  gave  an  exclamation ;  the  idea  of 
his  going  out  in  such  weather  was  terrible,  she  said,  and 
she  said  it  a  good  many  times. 

Julia  bent  over  her  work;  she  heard  the  swish  of  the 
rain  on  the  window,  the  uneven  sob  of  the  fitful  wind; 
she  heard  the  old  people  talk,  the  hubsand  persist,  the 
wife  protest.  She  did  not  look  up;  her  eyes  were  fixed 
on  her  needle,  but  she  hardly  saw  it;  more  plainly  she 
saw  the  dark  barns,  the  crowded  shelves,  the  place  where 
the  blue  daffodils  were.  She  could  find  them  with  per- 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  103 

feet  ease ;  could  choose  one  in  the  dark  as  easily  as  Mijn- 
heer  himself;  she  could  substitute  for  it  another,  one  of 
the  common  sort  of  the  same  shape  and  size;  no  one 
would  be  the  wiser ;  even  when  it  bloomed,  with  the  simple 
yellow  flower  that  has  beautified  spring  woods  so  long, 
no  one  would  know  it  was  not  a  sport  of  nature,  a  throw 
back  to  the  original  parent.  It  was  the  simplest  thing 
in  all  the  world ;  the  safest.  Not  that  that  recommended 
it ;  she  would  rather  it  had  been  difficult  or  dangerous,  it 
would  have  savoured  more  of  a  fair  fight  and  less  of  trick- 
ery. Besides,  such  safety  was  nothing;  anything  can  be 
made  safe  with  care  and  forethought. 

She  caught  her  own  name  in  the  talk  now ;  husband  and 
wife  were  speaking  lower,  evidently  arguing  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of  asking  her  to  go  the  rounds ;  for  a  moment  she 
pretended  not  to  hear,  then  she  raised  her  head,  contempt 
for  her  own  weakness  in  her  mind.  It  is  not  opportunity 
that  makes  thieves  of  thinking  folk,  and  she  knew  it; 
rather  it  is  the  thief  that  makes  opportunity,  if  he  is 
up  to  his  work.  Why  should  she  be  afraid  to  go  to  the 
barns?  She  would  not  take  the  daffodil  the  more  for 
going ;  if  she  meant  to  do  it,  and,  through  cowardice,  let 
this  opportunity  slip,  she  would  soon  find  another.  And 
if  she  did  not  mean  to,  the  proximity  of  the  thing  would 
not  make  her  take  it. 

She  put  down  her  work.  "I  will  lock  up  for  you,  Mijn- 
heer;  give  me  the  keys." 

He  protested,  and  his  wife  protested,  much  more  feebly, 
and  thanked  her  for  going  the  while.  They  gave  her 
many  directions,  and  told  her  she  must  put  on  this,  that, 
and  the  other,  and  must  be  careful  not  to  get  her  feet  wet, 
and  really  need  not  to  be  too  particular  in  examining  all 
the  doors.  She  answered  them  with  impatient  politeness, 
as  one  does  who  is  waiting  for  the  advent  of  a  greater 


104  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

matter;  she  was  not  irritated  by  the  trivial  interruptions 
which  came  between  her  and  the  decision  which  was  yet  to 
be  made ;  it  was  somehow  so  great  to  her  that  it  seemed 
as  if  it  could  wait.  At  last  she  was  off,  Mijnheer's 
galoshes  wallowing  about  her  feet,  his  black-caped  mack- 
intosh thrown  round  her  shoulders.  She  had  neither  hat 
nor  umbrella.  Mevrouw  literally  wailed  when  she  start- 
ed; but  it  made  no  impression,  she  came  of  the  nation' 
most  indifferent  to  getting  wet,  and  most-susceptible  to 
death  by  consumption  of  any  in  Europe. 

She  slopped  along  in  the  great  galoshes,  her  back  to  the 
lighted  house  now,  her  face  to  the  dark  barns.  There 
they  were,  easily  accessible,  waiting  for  her.  Was  she 
to  take  one,  or  was  she  not  ?  She  did  not  give  herself 
any  excuse  for  taking  it,  or  tell  herself  that  one  out  of 
six  was  not  much ;  or  that  Joost,  could  he  know  the  case, 
would  not  have  grudged  her  one  of  his  precious  bulbs. 
There  was  only  one  thing  she  admitted — it  was  there,  and 
her  need  for  it  was  great.  With  it  she  could  pay  a  debt 
that  was  due,  show  her  father  an  honourable  man,  and, 
seeing  that  the  affair  could  always  remain  secret,  raise 
herself  nearer  to  Rawson-Clew's  level.  Without  it  she 
could  not. 

She  had  come  to  the  first  barn  now,  and,  unbarring  the 
door,  went  in.  Almost  oppressive  came  the  dry  smell  of 
the  bulbs  to  her ;  very  familiar,  too,  as  familiar  as  the  dis- 
torted shadows  that  her  lantern  made.  Together  they 
brought  vividly  to  her  mind  the  first  time  she  went  the 
rounds  with  Joost — the  night  when  she  told  him  she  was 
bad,  the  worst  person  he  knew.  Poor  Joost,  he  had  in- 
terpreted her  words  his  own  way ;  she  remembered  very 
plainly  what  he  said  but  two  nights  ago — right  and  wrong, 
honourable  and  dishonourable,  wise  and  unwise,  they 
meant  the  same  thing  to  different  people,  the  choosing 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  105 

of  the  higher,  the  leaving  of  the  lower — and  he  believed 
no  less  of  her.  That  belief,  surely,  was  a  thing  that 
fought  on  the  side  of  the  angels?  And  then  there  was 
that  other  man,  able,  well-bred,  intellectual,  her  superior, 
who  had  treated  her  as  an  equal,  and  so  tacitly  demanded 
that  she  should  conform  to  his  code  of  honour.  And 
there  was  Johnny  Gillat,  poor,  old  round-faced  Johnny, 
who,  under  his  silly,  shabby  exterior,  had  somewhere, 
quite  understood,  the  same  code,  and  standard  of  a  gen- 
tleman, and  never  doubted  but  that  she  had  it  too — surely 
these  two,  also,  were  on  the  side  of  the  angels  ? 

But  it  was  not  a  matter  of  angels,  neither  was  it  a  mat- 
ter of  this  man's  thought,  or  that.  At  bottom,  it  seemed 
all  questions  could  be  brought  to  plain  terms — What  do 
I  think?  I,  alone  in  the  big,  black,  contradictory  world. 
Julia  realised  it,  and  asked  herself  what  it  mattered  if 
he,  if  they,  if  all  the  world  called  it  wrong?  What — 
pitiless,  logical  question — was  wrong?  Why  should  to 
take  in  one  case  be  so  called,  and  in  another  not?  By 
whose  word,  and  by  what  law  was  a  thing  thus,  and  why 
was  she  to  submit  to  it  ? 

She  faced  the  darkness,  the  lantern  at  her  feet,  her  back 
against  the  shelves,  and  asked  herself  the  world-old  ques- 
tion; and,  like  many  before  her,  found  no  answer,  be- 
cause logic,  merciless  solvent  of  faith  and  hope  and  law, 
never  answers  its  own  riddles.  Only,  as  she  stood  there, 
there  rose  up  before  her  mind's  eye  the  face  of  Joost,  with 
its  simple  gravity,  its  earnest,  trusting  blue  eyes.  She 
saw  it,  and  she  saw  the  humble  dignity  with  which  he  had 
shown  her  his  six  bulbs.  Not  as  a  proud  possessor  shows 
a  treasure,  rather  as  an  adept  shares  some  secret  of  his 
faith  or  art;  so  had  he  placed  them  in  her  power,  given 
her  a  chance  to  so  use  this  trust.  She  almost  groaned 
aloud  as  she  recalled  him,  and  recalled,  sorely  against  her 


106  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

will,  a  horrible  tale  she  had  once  read,  of  a  Brahmin  who 
murdered  a  little  child  for  her  worthless  silver  anklets. 
Joost  was  a  veritable  child  to  her,  powerless  before  her 
ability,  trusting  in  her  good  faith,  a  child  indeed,  even  if 
he  had  not  placed  his  secret  in  her  grasp.  And  it  was  he 
— this  child — that  she,  with  her  superior  strength,  was 
going  to  rob! 

She  shivered.  Why  was  he  not  Rawson-Clew?  Why 
could  not  he  take  better  care  of  himself  and  his  posses- 
sions? She  could  have  done  it  with  a  light  heart  then; 
there  would  have  been  a  semblance  of  fight  in  it ;  but  now 
— now  it  could  not  be  done.  Logic,  the  pitiless  solvent, 
has  no  action  on  those  old  long-transmitted  instincts;  it 
may  argue  with,  but  it  cannot  destroy,  those  vague  yearn- 
ings of  the  natural  man  towards  righteousness.  Julia  did 
not  argue,  she  only  obeyed ;  she  did  not  know  why. 

She  picked  up  the  lantern,  and  moved  to  go;  as  she 
did  so,  the  barn  door,  lightly  fastened,  blew  open.  A  rush 
of  rain  and  wind  swept  in,  the  smell  of  the  wet  earth,  and 
the  sight  of  the  tossing  trees,  and  massed  clouds  that  fled 
across  the  sky.  For  a  moment  she  stood  and  looked, 
hearing  the  wild  night  voices,  the  sob  of  the  wet  wind,  the 
rustle  and  mutter  of  the  trees — those  primitive  inarticulate 
things  that  do  not  lie.  And  in  her  heart  she  felt  very 
weary  of  shams  and  pretences,  very  hungry  for  the  rest 
of  reality  and  truth.  She  turned  away,  and  made  the 
round  of  the  barns  systematically,  and  without  haste ;  she 
did  not  hurry  past  the  resting-place  of  the  blue  daffodils, 
they  were  safe  from  her  now  and  always. 

It  was  not  till  some  weeks  later  that  she  saw,  and  not 
then  without  also  seeing  it  was  quite  impossible  to  dis- 
prove the  proposition,  that  there  was  something  grimly 
absurd  in  the  idea  which  had  possessed  her  that  night — 
the  thought  of  stealing  to  prove  a  lie,  and  acting  dis- 


THE    BLUE    DAFFODIL  107 

honourably  to  pay  a  debt  of  honour.  At  the 'time  she  did 
not  think  at  all,  she  acted  on  instinct  only.  Thank  God 
for  those  dumb  instincts,  making  for  righteousness, 
which,  in  spite  of  theologians,  are  implanted  somewhere 
in  the  heart  of  man. 

So  she  went  the  rounds,  fastened  the  barns,  and  came 
out  of  the  last  one,  locking  the  door  after  her.  Outside, 
she  stood  a  second,  the  rain  falling  upon  her  bare  head, 
the  wind  blowing  her  cloak  about  her.  And  she  did  not 
feel  triumphant  or  victorious,  nor  reluctant  and  con- 
temptuous of  her  weakness;  only  somehow  apart  and 
alone,  and  very,  very  tired. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

POOFERCHJES  AND  JEALOUSY 

THE  Polkingtons  were  launching  out ;  not  ostentatious- 
ly with  expensive  entertainments  or  anything  striking,  but 
in  all  small  ways,  scarcely  noticeable  except  in  general 
effect,  but  none  the  less  expensive.  They  could  not  af- 
ford it ;  the  past  nine  months  had  been  very  difficult,  first 
the  Captain's  unfortunate  misuse  of  the  cheque,  then 
Violet's  engagement  and  the  necessary  entertainment  that 
it  involved,  and  then  her  wedding.  Financially  they  were 
in  a  very  bad  way,  but  that  did  not  prevent  them  spending 
— or  owing — in  a  rather  lordly  fashion.  Mrs.  Polkington 
with  one  daughter  married,  and  another  safely  out  of  the 
way,  seemed  determined  to  take  the  field  well  with  the  re- 
maining one.  Cherie  was  quite  ready  to  second  the  ef- 
fort, indeed,  she  was  the  instigator ;  she  was  not  only  the 
prettiest  of  the  sisters,  but  also  the  most  ease  loving,  and 
though  ambitious,  less  clever  than  the  others,  and  a  great 
deal  more  short-sighted.  She  had  for  some  time  ceased 
to  be  content  with  the  position  at  Marbridge  and  the 
society  there ;  she  wanted  to  be  recognised  by  the  "coun- 
ty." This  desire  had  been  growing  of  late,  for  there  had 
been  a  very  eligible  and  attractive  bachelor  addition  to 
that  charmed  circle,  and  he  had  more  than  once  looked 
admiration  her  way.  She  and  her  mother  went  to  work 
well  and  spared  neither  time  nor  trouble ;  not  much  result 
could  be  expected  during  the  summer  months,  little  done 

1 08 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        109 

then  except  get  ready — an  expensive  proceeding.  It  was 
when  September  brought  people  home  for  the  partridge 
shooting  and  October's  pheasants  kept  them  there  till 
hunting  began,  that  they  expected  their  success  and  the 
return  for  their  outlay,  and  they  were  quite  content  to 
wait  for  it. 

Their  plans  and  doings  were  naturally  not  confided  to 
any  one,  not  even  Julia;  she  heard  seldom  from  Mar- 
bridge  ;  the  family  feelings  were  of  a  somewhat  utilitarian 
order,  based  largely  on  mutual  benefit.  She  wrote  now 
and  then ;  she  happened  to  do  so  on  the  day  after  the  one 
on  which  she  did  not  take  the  blue  daffodil ;  and  she  men- 
tioned in  this  letter  that  it  was  possible  she  should  be  home 
again  soon.  Seeing  that  she  had  decided  the  daffodil  was 
unobtainable  she  saw  little  reason  for  staying  longer ;  this 
of  course  she  did  not  mention  when  she  wrote.  Some- 
what to  her  surprise  she  got  an  almost  immediate  reply 
to  her  letter. 

It  would  not  suit  Mrs.  Polkington  and  Cherie  to  have 
Julia  back  soon  at  all ;  it  is  always  easier  to  swim  socially 
with  one  daughter  than  two,  especially  if  the  second  is 
not  good-looking.  Also,  Julia,  cautious,  long-headed  and 
capable,  was  certain  to  criticise  their  proceedings  and  do 
her  best  to  interfere  with  them.  She  would  be  wrong  in 
her  judgments,  of  course,  and  they  right;  they  were  sure 
of  that,  but  they  did  not  want  the  trouble  of  attempting  to 
convert  her,  and  anyhow,  they  felt  they  could  do  much 
better  without  her,  and  Mrs.  Polkington  wrote  and  inti- 
mated as  much  politely.  She  gave  several  excellent  rea- 
sons, all  of  which  were  perfectly  transparent  to  Julia, 
though  that  did  not  matter,  seeing  that  she  was  sufficiently 
hurt  in  her  feelings,  or  her  pride,  to  at  once  determine  to 
fulfil  her  mother's  wishes  and  do  anything  rather  than  go 
where  she  was  not  wanted. 


i  io  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

There  was  not  much  said  of  the  plans  and  doings  in  Mrs. 
Polkington's  letter,  but  a  little  crept  in  almost  without  the 
writer's  knowledge,  enough  to  rouse  Julia's  suspicions. 
Why,  she  asked  herself,  was  her  mother  suddenly  en- 
amoured with  the  beauty  of  Chippendale  furniture  ?  How 
did  she  know  that  Sturt's  (the  tailor's)  prices  were  lower 
for  costumes  this  season  ?  And  in  what  way  had  she  be- 
come aware  what  the  Ashton's  last  parlour-maid  thought, 
if  she  had  not  engaged  that  young  woman  for  her  own 
service?  Julia  was  at  once  uneasy  and  disgusted;  the 
last  alike  with  the  proceedings  themselves  and  the  at- 
tempt to  deceive  her  about  them.  And  another  letter 
she  received  at  the  same  time  did  not  make  her  any  more 
satisfied ;  it  was  from  Johnny  Gillat,  about  as  silly  and  un- 
informing  a  letter  as  ever  man  wrote,  but  it  contained  one 
piece  of  information.  Mr.  Gillat  was  going  to  have  a 
great  excitement  in  the  early  autumn — Captain  Polking- 
ton  was  coming  to  London,  perhaps  for  as  long  as  three 
months.  Johnny  did  not  know  why ;  he  thought  perhaps 
to  have  some  treatment  for  his  rheumatism;  Mrs.  Polk- 
ington  had  arranged  it.  Julia  did  know  why,  and  the 
short-sightedness  of  the  policy  roused  her  contempt.  To 
thus  put  the  family  drawback  out  of  the  way,  and  leave 
him  to  his  own  devices  and  Mr.  Gillat's  care,  seemed  to 
her  as  unwise  towards  him  as  it  was  unkind  to  Johnny. 
She  would  have  written  that  minute  to  expostulate  with 
her  mother  if  she  had  not  just  then  been  called  away. 

These  two  disturbing  letters  arrived  on  the  day  that 
Joost  came  home  from  Germany,  after  the  English  mail 
for  the  day  had  gone.  Julia  comforted  herself  with  this 
last  fact  when  she  was  called  before  she  had  time  to  write 
to  her  mother ;  she  could  write  when  she  went  to  bed  that 
night ;  the  letter  would  go  just  as  soon  as  if  it  was  writ- 
ten now ;  so  she  went  to  answer  Mevrouw's  summons  to 


POOFERCHJES  AND  JEALOUSY    in 

admire  the  carved  crochet  hook  her  son  had  brought  her 
as  a  present  from  Germany.  Joost  had  brought  several 
small  presents  besides  the  crochet  hook,  a  pipe  for  his 
father,  and  two  other  trifles — a  small  vase  and  a  photo- 
graph of  a  plant  which  was  the  pride  of  the  Berlin  gar- 
dens that  year — an  aloe,  no  yucca,  but  one  of  the  true 
rare  blooming  sort,  in  full  flower.  Julia  was  asked  to 
take  her  choice  of  these  two;  she  chose  the  photograph 
because  it  seemed  to  her  much  more  characteristic  of  the 
giver,  and  also  because  it  was  easier  to  put  away.  She 
had  no  idea  of  pleasing  Joost  by  so  doing ;  to  tell  the  truth 
she  hardly  felt  desirous  of  pleasing  him,  for  though  she 
had  refained  from  taking  his  blue  daffodil  and  was  in  a 
way  satisfied  that  she  had  done  so,  she  did  not  feel  exactly 
grateful  to  him  for  unconsciously  standing  between  her 
and  it,  from  which  some  may  conclude  that  virtue  was  not 
an  indigenous  plant  with  Julia. 

When  Denah  arrived  after  dinner  she  was  given  the 
vase.  Before  Joost  went  away  she  had  expressed  in  his 
hearing  a  wish  that  she  had  something  from  Berlin ;  she 
had  said  it  rather  pronouncedly  as  one  might  express  a 
desire  for  a  bear  from  the  Rocky  Mountains,  or  a  ruby 
from  Burmah ;  she  could  hardly  have  received  one  of 
those  with  more  enthusiasm  than  she  did  the  vase.  She 
admired  it  from  every  point  of  view  and  thanked  Joost 
delightedly;  the  delight,  however,  was  a  little  modified 
when  Mijnheer  let  slip  the  fact  that  Julia  also  had  a  pres- 
ent from  Berlin. 

"Have  you?"  she  asked  suspiciously.  "What  is  it? 
Show  me." 

Julia  fetched  the  photograph  and  exhibited  it  with  as 
little  elation  as  possible.  Denah  did  not  admire  it  great- 
ly, she  said  she  much  preferred  her  own  present. 

At  this  Joost  smiled  a  little ;  it  was  only  what  he  ex- 


ii2  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

pected,  and  Julia  began  tactfully  to  talk  about  the  beau- 
ties of  the  vase ;  but  Denah  was  not  to  be  put  off  her  main 
point. 

"Do  you  not  prefer  mine ;  really  and  truly,  would  you 
not  rather  it  had  been  yours  ?"  she  asked. 

Julia  could  have  slipped  out  of  the  answer  quite  easily ; 
the  Polkingtons  were  all  good  at  saying  things  to  be  in- 
terpreted according  to  taste ;  but  Joost,  with  signal  idiocy, 
stepped  in  and  prevented. 

"No,"  he  said,  "she  preferred  the  photograph;  she 
chose  it  of  the  two." 

At  this  intelligence  Denah's  face  was  a  study;  Julia 
could  not  but  be  amused  by  it  although  she  was  sorrry. 
She  did  not  want  to  make  the  girl  jealous,  it  was  absurd 
that  she  should  be;  but  absurdity  never  prevents  such 
things,  and  would  not  now,  nor  would  it  make  her  pleas- 
anter  if  she  were  once  fairly  roused.  Julia  smoothed  mat- 
ters over  as  well  as  she  could,  which  was  very  well  con- 
sidering, though  she  failed  to  entirely  allay  Denah's  sus- 
picions. 

As  soon  after  as  she  could  she  set  out  for  the  village, 
leaving  the  field  to  the  Dutch  girl,  and  carrying  with  her 
enough  unpleasant  thoughts  on  other  things  to  prevent 
her  from  giving  any  more  consideration  to  the  silly  spasm 
of  jealousy.  She  had  thrust  her  two  letters  from  Eng- 
land into  her  pocket,  and  as  she  went  she  kept  turning 
and  turning  their  news  in  her  mind  though  without  much 
result.  There  seemed  very  little  she  could  do  except  pre- 
vent the  banishing  of  her  father  to  London.  She  would 
write  to  her  mother  about  that,  and,  what  might  be  rather 
more  effective,  to  Mr.  Gillat.  She  could  tell  him  it  must 
not  happen,  and  instruct  him  how  to  place  obstacles  in 
the  way ;  he  would  do  his  best  to  fulfil  her  requests,  she 
was  sure,  even  to  going  down  to  Marbridge  and  establish- 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        113 

ing  himself  there  about  the  time  of  her  father's  intended 
departure.  But  with  regard  to  the  rest  of  her  mother's 
plans,  or  Cherie's,  whichever  it  might  be,  there  seemed 
nothing  to  be  done.  To  write  would  be  useless;  to  go 
home,  even  if  she  swallowed  her  pride  and  did  so,  very 
little  better ;  of  course  she  had  not  anything  very  definite 
to  go  upon,  only  a  hint  here  and  there,  yet  she  guessed 
pretty  well  what  they  were  doing,  what  spending,  and 
what  they  thought  to  get  by  it.  The  old,  long-headed 
Julia  feared  for  the  result;  Mrs.  Polkington,  clever 
though  she  undoubtedly  was,  had  never  succeeded  in  big 
ventures;  she  had  not  the  sort  of  mind  for  it;  she  had 
never  made  a  wholly  successful  big  stride ;  her  real  climb- 
ing had  been  done  very  slowly,  so  the  old  Julia  feared 
for  her.  And  the  new  one,  who  had  grown  up  during  the 
past  months,  revolted  against  the  whole  thing,  finding  it 
sordid,  despicable,  dishonourable  even,  somehow  all 
wrong.  And  perhaps  because  the  old  cautious  Julia 
could  do  nothing  to  avert  the  consequences,  the  newer 
nature  was  in  the  ascendant  that  evening,  and  conse- 
quences were  in  time  forgotten,  and  disgust  and  weariness 
and  shame — which  included  self  and  all  things  connected 
with  it — took  possession  of  the  girl. 

By  and  by  she  heard  a  step  behind  her — Rawson-Clew. 
She  had  forgotten  his  existence;  she  was  almost  sorry 
to  be  reminded  of  it;  she  felt  so  ashamed  of  herself  and 
her  people,  so  conscious  of  the  gulf  between  them  and 
him.  So  very  conscious  of  this  last  that  she  suddenly 
felt  disinclined  for  the  effort  of  struggling  to  hide  or 
bridge  it. 

He  caught  up  with  her.  "How  has  the  crochet 
progressed  this  week  under  your  care?"  he  asked  her 
lightly. 

"It  has  not  progressed,"  she  answered;  "there  are 


ii4  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

enough  mistakes  in  it  now  to  occupy  Denah  for  a  long 
time." 

He  took  her  basket  from  her,  and  she  looked  at  him 
thoughtfully.  He  was  just  the  same  as  usual,  quiet, 
drawling  voice,  eyeglass,  everything — she  wondered  if 
he  were  ever  different;  how  he  would  act,  say,  in  her 
circumstances.  If  they  could  change  bodies,  now,  and 
he  be  Julia  Polkington,  with  her  relations,  needs  and  op- 
portunities, what  would  he  do?  Would  he  still  be  im- 
passive, deliberate,  equal  to  all  occasions?  Would  he 
find  it  easy  to  keep  his  inviolable  laws  of  good-breeding 
and  honour,  and  so  forth  ? 

"There  is  something  I  should  like  to  ask  you,"  she  said 
suddenly. 

"Yes?"  he  inquired. 

"Is  it  much  trouble  to  you  to  be  honest?" 

He  was  a  little  surprised,  though  not  so  much  as  he 
would  have  been  earlier  in  their  acquaintance.  "That," 
he  said,  "I  expect  rather  depends  on  what  you  mean  by 
honest.  I  imagine  you  don't  refer  to  lying  and  stealing, 
and  that  sort  of  thing,  since  nobody  finds  it  difficult  to 
avoid  them." 

"They  are  not  gentlemanly?"  she  suggested. 

"I  don't  know  that  I  ever  looked  at  it  in  that  way,"  he 
said;  "or,  indeed,  any  way.  One  does  not  think  about 
those  sort  of  things ;  one  does  not  do  them,  that's  all." 

She  nodded.  The  careless  change  of  pronoun,  which 
in  a  way  included  her  with  himself,  was  not  lost  upon 
her. 

"In  the  matter  of  half-truths,"  she  inquired;  "how 
about  them  ?" 

"I  don't  think  I  have  given  that  subject  consideration 
either,"  he  answered,  rather  amused;  "there  does  not 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        115 

seem  any  need  at  my  age.  One  does  things,  or  one  does 
not;  abstractions  don't  appeal  to  most  men  after  thirty." 

Again  Julia  nodded.  "It  looks  to  me,"  she  said,  "as 
if  you  take  your  morality,  like  your  dinner,  as  a  matter 
of  course ;  it's  always  there ;  you  don't  have  to  bother  after 
it;  you  don't  really  know  how  it  comes,  or  what  it  is 
worth." 

Now  and  then  Rawson-Clew  had  observed  in  his  ac- 
quaintance with  Julia,  she  said  things  which  had  a  way 
of  lighting  him  up  to  himself;  this  was  one  of  the  occa- 
sions. "Possibly  you  are  right,"  he  said,  with  faint 
amusement.  "How  do  you  take  yours?  Let  us  con- 
sider yours ;  I  am  sure  it  would  be  a  great  deal  more  in- 
teresting." 

"There  would  be  more  variety  in  it,"  she  said  signifi- 
cantly. 

"What  is  your  opinion  about  half-truths  ?"  he  inquired, 
with  grave  mimicry  of  her. 

'  "Half  a  truth,  however  small, 
Is  better  than  no  truth  at  all,'  " 

she  quoted.  "That  is  so ;  it  is  better,  safer  to  deal  with — 
to  explain  away  if  it  is  found  out,  to  deceive  with  if  it 
is  not.  But  it  is  not  half  so  easy  as  the  whole  truth; 
that  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world;  it  takes  no 
ingenuity,  no  brains,  no  courage,  no  acting,  no  feeling  the 
pulse  of  your  people,  no  bolstering  up  or  watching  or  re- 
membering. If  I  wanted  to  teach  the  beauty  of  truth,  I 
would  set  my  pupils  to  do  a  little  artistic  white  lying  on 
their  own  account,  to  make  things  look  four  times  as 
good  as  they  really  were,  and  not  to  forget  to  make  them 
square  together,  that  would  teach  them  the  advantage  of 
truth/' 


n6  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Do  you  think  so?"  Rawson-Clew  said.  "It  is  not  the 
usual  opinion;  fools  and  cowards  are  generally  supposed 
to  be  the  great  dealers  in  deceit  and  subterfuge." 

"May  be,"  Julia  allowed ;  "but  I  don't  happen  to  have 
come  across  that  sort  much ;  the  other  I  have,  and  I  am 
just  about  sick  of  it — I  am  sick  of  pretending  and  sham- 
ming and  double-dealing,  of  saying  one  thing  and  imply- 
ing another,  and  meaning  another  still — you  don't  know 
what  it  feels  like,  you  have  never  had  to  do  it;  you 
wouldn't,  of  course ;  very  likely  you  couldn't,  even.  I  am 
weary  of  it ;  I  am  weary  of  the  whole  thing." 

Rawson-Clew  screwed  the  glass  into  his  eye  carefully 
but  did  not  look  at  her ;  he  had  an  idea  she  would  rather 
not.  "What  is  it?"  he  asked  kindly.  "What  has  gone 
wrong  to-night  ?  Too  much  pudding  again  ?" 

"No,"  she  answered,  with  a  quick,  if  partial,  recovery  ; 
"too  much  humbug,  too  much  self.  I  have  seen  a  great 
deal  of  myself  lately,  and  it's  hateful." 

"I  cannot  agree  with  you." 

"Do  you  like  having  a  lot  of  yourself?" 

"No;  I  like  yourself." 

She  laughed  a  little ;  in  her  heart  she  was  pleased,  but 
she  only  said,  "I  don't ;  I  know  what  it  really  is." 

"And  I  do  not?" 

"No,"  she  answered ;  then,  with  a  sudden  determination 
to  tell  him  the  worst,  and  to  deal  in  this  newly  admired 
honesty,  she  said,  "I  will  tell  you,  though.  You  remem- 
ber my  father  ?  You  may  have  politely  forgotten  him,  or 
smoothed  out  your  recollections  of  him — remember  him 
now ;  he  is  just  about  what  you  thought  him." 

"Indeed?"  the  tone  was  that  one  of  polite  interest, 
which  she  had  come  to  know  so  well.  "Your  shoe  is 
unfastened;  may  I  tie  it  for  you?  The  question  is,"  he 
went  on,  as  he  stooped  to  her  shoe,  "what  did  I  think  of 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        117 

your  father  ?  I'm  sure  I  don't  know,  and  I  hardly  think 
you  are  in  a  position  to,  either." 

She  moved  impatiently,  so  that  the  shoelace  slipped  out 
of  his  hand,  and  he  had  to  begin  all  over  again.  It  was 
a  very  shabby  shoe;  at  another  time  she  might  have 
minded  about  it,  and  even  refused  to  have  it  fastened  on 
that  account;  to-night  she  did  not  care,  which  was  per- 
haps as  well,  for  Rawson-Clew  knew  long  ago  all  about 
the  shabbiness — the  only  thing  he  did  not  know  before 
was  the  good  shape  of  the  foot  inside. 

"I  know  perfectly  well  what  you  thought  my  father," 
she  said ;  "if  you  have  forgotten,  I  will  remind  you.  You 
did  not  think  him  an  adventurer,  I  know ;  of  course,  you 
saw  he  had  not  brains  enough." 

But  here  the  shoe  tying  was  finished,  and  Rawson-Clew 
intimated  politely  that  he  was  not  anxious  to  be  reminded 
of  things  he  had  forgotten.  "You  began  by  saying  you 
would  tell  me  about  yourself,"  he  said ;  "will  you  not  go 
on?" 

"I  have  more  brains  than  my  father,"  she  said,  "and 
no  more  principles." 

"Ergo — you  succeed  where  he  falls  short ;  in  fact,  you 
are  an  adventuress — is  that  it?  My  dear  child,  you 
neither  are,  nor  ever  could  be;  believe  me,  I  really  do 
know,  though,  as  you  have  indicated,  my  morality  is 
rather  mechanical  and  my  experience  much  as  other 
men's.  You  see,  I,  too,  have  graduated  in  the  study  of 
humanity  in  the  university  of  cosmopolis;  I  don't  think 
my  degree  is  as  high  as  yours,  and  I  certainly  did  not  take 
it  so  young,  but  I  believe  I  know  an  adventuress  when  I 
see  one.  You  will  never  do  in  that  walk  of  life;  I  don't 
mean  to  insinuate  that  you  haven't  brains  enough,  or  that 
you  would  ever  lose  your  head;  it  isn't  that  you  would 
lose,  it's  your  heart." 


ii8  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"I  haven't;"  Julia  cried  hotly.  "I  have  not  lost  my 
heart;  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  it." 

"I  did  not  say  that  you  had,"  Rawson-Clew  reminded 
her;  "of  course  not,  you  have  not  lost  it,  and  could  not 
easily.  I  did  not  mean  that ;  I  only  meant  that  it  would 
interfere  with  your  success  as  an  adventuress." 

"It  would  not,"  Julia  persisted;  "I  don't  care  about 
people  a  bit;  it  isn't  that,  it  is  simply  that  I  am  sick  of 
deception,  that  is  why  I  am  telling  you  the  truth.  And 
as  for  the  other  thing — the  daffodil" — she  forgot  that 
he  did  not  know  about  it — "I  couldn't  take  it  from  any 
one  so  silly,  so  childish,  so  trusting." 

"Of  course  not,"  Rawson-Clew  said.  "I  don't  know 
what  the  daffodil  thing  is,  nor  from  whom  you  could 
not  take  it — please  don't  tell  me ;  I  never  take  the  slightest 
interest  in  other  people's  business,  it  bores  me.  But,  you 
see,  you  bear  out  what  I  say;  you  are  of  those  strong 
who  are  merciful;  you  would' make  no  success  as  an 
adventuress.  Besides,  your  tastes  are  too  simple ;  I  have 
some  recollections  of  your  mentioning  corduroy — er — 
trousers  and  a  diet  of  onions  as  the  height  of  your  ambi- 
tion." 

Julia  laughed  in  spite  of  herself.  "That  is  only  when 
I  retire,"  she  said.  "I  haven't  retired  yet;  until  I  do  I 
am " 

"The  incarnation  of  the  seven  deadly  sins?"  Rawson- 
Clew  finished  for  her,  with  a  smile  in  his  eyes.  "No  doubt 
of  it ;  I  expect  that  is  what  makes  you  good  company." 

So,  after  all,  it  came  about  that  she  did  not  get  her 
confession  made  in  full.  But,  then,  there  hardly  seemed 
need  for  it;  it  appeared  that  Rawson-Clew  already  knew 
a  great  deal  about  her,  and  did  not  think  the  worse  of 
her  for  it.  Rather  it  seemed  he  thought  better  than  she 
had  even  believed ;  he,  himself,  too,  was  rather  different — 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        119 

there  had  crept  a  note  of  warmth  and  personality  into 
their  acquaintance  which  had  not  been  there  before.  Julia 
had  pleasant  thoughts  for  company  on  her  homeward 
walk,  in  spite  of  the  worry  of  the  letters  she  carried  with 
her;  she  even  for  a  moment  had  an  idea  of  putting  the 
matter  they  contained  before  Rawson-Clew  and  asking 
his  advice;  that  is,  if  the  friendship  which  had  begun  to 
dawn  on  their  acquaintance  that  evening  grew  yet  fur- 
ther. It  did  grow,  but  she  did  not  ask  him,  loyalty  to 
her  family  prevented;  there  were,  however,  plenty  of 
other  things  to  talk  about,  and  the  friendship  got  on  well 
until  the  end  came. 

The  end  came  about  the  time  of  the  annual  fair.  This 
fair  was  a  great  event  in  the  little  town;  it  only  lasted 
three  days,  and  only  the  middle  one  of  the  three  was  im- 
portant, or  in  the  least  provocative  of  disorder;  but — so 
Mijnheer  said — it  upset  business  very  much.  After  in- 
quiry as  to  how  this  came  about,  Julia  learnt  that  it  was 
found  necessary  to  give  the  workmen  a  holiday  on  the 
principal  day.  They  got  so  drunk  the  night  before,  that 
most  of  them  were  unfit  for  work,  and  a  few  even  had 
the  hardihood  to  stop  away  entirely,  so  as  to  devote  the 
whole  day  to  getting  drunk  again.  Under  these  circum- 
stanes,  Mijnheer  made  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  gave  a 
whole  holiday  to  the  entire  staff. 

"Does  the  office  have  a  holiday  too?"  Julia  asked. 

Mijnheer  nodded.  "These  young  fellows,"  he  said, 
"are  all  for  holidays ;  they  are  not  like  their  fathers.  Now 
it  is  always  'I  must  ride  on  my  wheel ;  I  must  row  in  my 
boat ;  I  must  play  my  piano ;  let  us  put  the  work  away  as 
soon  as  we  can,  and  forget  it.'  It  was  not  so  in  my 
young  days ;  then  we  worked,  or  we  slept ;  playing  was  for 
children.  There  were  some  great  men  of  business  in 
those  days." 


120  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Julia  was  not  in  a  position  to  contradict  this ;  she  only 
said,  "It  is  a  real  holiday,  then,  like  a  bank  holiday  in 
England?" 

"A  real  holiday,  yes,"  he  answered  her;  "a  holiday 
for  you  too,  if  you  like.  Would  you  like  a  real  English 
bank  holiday?"  He  called  to  his  wife:  "See  here,"  he 
said,  "here  is  an  English  miss  who  would  like  an  English 
holiday;  when  the  workmen  have  theirs  she  shall  have 
hers  too,  is  it  not  so  ?" 

Mevrouw  nodded,  laughing.  "But  what  will  you  do 
with  it  ?"  she  asked. 

"I  should  go  out,"  Julia  answered;  "if  it  is  fine  I 
should  go  out  all  day." 

"To  the  fair?"  Mijnheer  asked.  "You  would  not  like 
that  alone ;  it  would  be  very  rough." 

"I  should  go  out  into  the  country,"  Julia  said.  "I 
should  make  an  excursion  all  by  myself." 

They  seemed  a  good  deal  amused  by  her  taste,  but  the 
idea  suggested  in  fun  was  really  determined  upon ;  Julia, 
so  Mijnheer  promised,  should  have  a  holiday  when  every 
one  else  did,  and  do  just  what  she  pleased. 

"You  shall  do  as  you  like,"  he  said ;  "even  though  it  is 
not  to  go  to  the  fair  and  eat  pooferchjes.  It  is  only 
once  in  a  year  one  can  eat  pooferchjes,  or  three  times 
rather ;  they  are  to  be  had  on  each  of  the  three  days." 

"What  are  they  ?"  Julia  asked.  "I  have  never  heard  of 
them." 

"Never  heard  of  them,"  the  old  man  exclaimed.  "They 
do  not  have  them,  I  suppose,  on  an  English  bank  holiday  ? 
Then  certainly  you  must  have  them  here ;  we  will  go  and 
eat  them  on  the  first  day  of  the  fair,  when  everything  is 
nice  and  clean,  and  there  are  not  too  many  people  about. 
I  will  find  a  nice  quiet  place,  and  we  will  go  and  eat 
them  together,  after  tea,  before  there  are  great  crowds. 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        121 

Will  you  come  with  me  ?  I  shall  be  taking  my  young  lady 
to  the  fair  like  a  gay  dog." 

He  chuckled  at  the  idea,  and  Julia  readily  agreed.  "I 
shall  be  delighted,"  she  said. 

When  Denah  came,  a  little  later,  it  seemed  she  would 
be  delightel  too,  although  she  was  not  specially  asked. 
But  when  she  heard  of  the  plan,  she  announced  that  her 
father  had  promised  to  take  Anna  and  herself,  and  what 
could  be  better  than  that  the  parties  should  join  ?  Mijn- 
heer  quite  approved  of  this,  so  did  Julia ;  and  she,  on  hear- 
ing Denah's  proposal,  at  once  saw  that  Joost  was  included 
as  he  had  not  been  before.  Joost  did  not  like  fairs;  he 
objected  to  noise,  and  glare,  and  crowds,  and  all  such 
things ;  neither  did  he  care  for  pooferchjes;  they  were  too 
bilious  for  him.  Nevertheless  he  agreed  to  join  the  party ; 
Denah  was  quite  sure  it  was  entirely  on  her  account. 

On  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  the  fair,  Julia  went 
into  the  town  to  buy  cakes  to  take  with  her  on  to-morrow's 
excursion.  She  had  not  changed  her  mind  about  that; 
she  was  still  fully  determined  to  go  and  spend  a  long 
day  in  the  Dunes.  She  had  not  told  the  Van  Heigens 
of  the  place  chosen;  she  and  Mijnheer  had  much  fun 
and  mystery  about  it,  he  declaring  she  was  going  to  the 
wood  to  ride  donkeys  with  the  head  gardener's  fat  wife. 
There  was  another  thing  she  also  had  not  told  the  Van 
Heigens — a  slight  alteration  there  had  been  in  her  plans ; 
she  was  not,  as  she  had  first  intended,  going  alone.  It 
had  somehow  come  about  that  Rawson-Clew  was  going 
with  her ;  he  had  never  seen  the  Dunes,  and  he  had  noth- 
ing to  do  that  day,  and  he  was  not  going  to  Herr  Van 
de  Gruetz  in  the  evening,  it  seemed  rather  a  good  idea 
that  he  should  go  for  a  holiday  too ;  Julia  saw  no  objec- 
tion to  it,  but  also  she  saw  that  it  would  not  do  to  tell  her 
Dutch  employers.  She  had  never  mentioned  Rawson- 


122  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Clew  to  them — there  had  not  seemed  any  need ;  she  never 
met  him  till  she  was  clear  of  the  town  and  the  range 
of  reporting  tongues  there,  and  she  usually  parted  from 
him  before  she  reached  the  village  and  the  observers  there, 
so  nothing  was  known  of  the  evening  walks.  Which  was 
rather  a  pity,  for,  as  Julia  afterwards  found  out,  it  is  often 
wisest  to  tell  something  of  your  doings,  especially  if  you 
cannot  tell  all,  and  they  are  likely  to  come  in  for  public 
notice. 

Julia  bought  her  cakes,  and  went  about  the  town  feeling 
as  holiday-like  as  the  gayest  peasant  there,  although  she 
had  no  wonderful  holiday  head-dress  of  starched  lace  and 
gold  plates.  She  did  not  see  any  one  she  knew,  except  old 
Marthe,  Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  housekeeper.  She  had 
met  the  old  woman  several  times  when  she  was  market- 
ing, and  was  on  speaking  terms  with  her  now,  so  she  had 
to  stop  and  listen  to  her  troubles.  They  were  only  the 
same  old  tale ;  her  newest  young  cook  had  left  suddenly, 
and  she  had  come  to  the  town  to  see  if  she  could  get 
another  from  among  the  girls  who  had  come  in  for  the 
fair.  She  had  no  success  at  all,  and  was  setting  out  for 
home,  despondent,  and  not  at  all  comforted  to  think  that 
she  would  have  to  trudge  in  and  try  all  over  again  the 
day  after  to-morrow.  To-morrow,  itself,  the  great  day, 
it  was  no  good  trying ;  no  girl  would  pay  attention  to  busi- 
ness then. 

In  the  evening  Julia  went  again  into  the  town,  but  this 
time  with  Mijnheer  and  Joost,  and  dressed  in  her  best 
dress.  It  was  not  at  all  a  new  dress,  nor  at  all  a  grand 
one,  but  it  was  well  chosen,  well  made  and  well  fitted, 
and  certainly  very  well  put  on;  the  gloves  and  hat,  too, 
accorded  with  it,  and  she  herself  was  in  a  humour  of 
gaiety  that  bordered  on  brilliancy.  Was  she  not  going  to 
have  a  holiday  to-morrow,  and  was  she  not  going  to  spend 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        123 

it  in  company  with  a  man  she  liked,  and  in  despite  of 
Dutch  propriety,  which  would  certainly  have  been  thor- 
oughly and  outrageously  shocked  thereby?  Denah  knew 
nothing  of  the  causes  at  work,  but  she  was  not  slow  to  dis- 
cern the  result  when  she  and  her  father  and  sister  met  the 
Van  Heigen  party  that  evening.  She  smoothed  the  bow  at 
the  neck  of  her  best  dress,  and  looked  at  her  gloves  discon- 
tentedly; she  did  not  altogether  admire  Julia's  clothes, 
they  were  not  at  all  Dutch ;  but  she  had  an  intuitive  idea 
that  they  came  nearer  to  Paris,  the  sartorial  ideal  of  the 
nations,  than  her  own  did.  She  looked  suspiciously  at  the 
English  girl,  her  eyes  were  shining  and  sparkling  like 
stars :  they  were  full  of  alert  interest  and  half-suppressed 
mischief.  She  looked  at  everything,  and  overlooked  noth- 
ing, though  she  was  talking  to  Mijnheer  in  a  soft,  purring 
voice,  that  was  full  of  fun  and  wickedness.  Now  she 
turned  to  Joost,  and  her  voice  took  another  tone;  she 
was  teasing  him,  making  fun  of  him  in  a  way  that  Denah 
decided  was  scandalous,  although  his  father  was  there, 
aiding  and  abetting  her.  Joost  did  not  seem  to  resent  it 
a  bit;  he  listened  quite  serenely,  and  even  turned  a  look 
on  her  as  one  who  has  another  and  private  interpretation 
of  the  words.  Anna  saw  nothing  of  this ;  she  only  thought 
Julia  very  nice,  and  her  dress  pretty,  and  her  talk  gay. 
But  Denah,  though  not  always  so  acute,  was  in  love,  and 
she  saw  a  good  deal,  and  treasured  it  up  for  use  when 
the  occasion  should  offer. 

They  ate  pooferchjes,  sitting  in  a  funny  little  covered 
stall;  at  least,  the  top  and  three  sides  were  covered,  the 
fourth  was  open  to  the  street.  A  long,  narrow  table,  with 
clean  white  calico  spread  on  it,  ran  down  the  centre  of 
the  place,  and  narrow  forms  stood  on  either  side  of  it. 
It  was  lighted  by  a  Chinese  lantern  hung  from  the  roof, 
and  also,  and  more  especially,  by  a  flare  outside  of  the 


124  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

charcoal  fire,  where  the  pooferchjes  were  cooked.  A 
powerful  brown-armed  peasant  woman  made  them,  beat- 
ing the  batter  till  it  frothed,  and  dropping  it  by  the  spoon- 
ful into  the  little  hollows  in  the  great  sheet  of  iron  that 
glowed  on  the  stove  without.  The  glow  of  the  fire  was  on 
her  too,  on  her  short  skirt  and  her  fine  arms,  and  the 
flaring  light,  that  flickered  in  the  breeze,  danced  on  her 
strong,  brown  face,  with  its  resolute  lines,  and  splendid 
gold-ringed  head-dress.  People  kept  passing  to  and  fro 
all  the  time,  or  stopping  sometimes  to  look  in ;  solemnly- 
gay  holiday  people,  enjoying  themselves  after  their  own 
fashion.  The  light  flickered  on  them,  too,  and  on  the 
brick  pavement,  and  on  the  trees,  plentiful  almost  as 
canals  in  the  town.  Julia  leaned  forward  and  looked,  and 
listened  to  the  guttural  Dutch  voices,  and  the  curious 
patois  to  be  heard  now  and  then,  and  the  distant  notes 
of  music  that  blended  with  it.  And  the  flickering  lights 
and  shadows  danced  across  her  mind,  and  the  simple  holi- 
day feeling  of  it  all  got  to  her  head. 

Then  the  pooferchjes  were  done  and  brought  in,  little 
round,  crisp  things,  smoking  hot,  and  very  greasy ;  some- 
thing like  tiny  English  pancakes — at  least  one  might  say 
so  if  one  had  not  tasted  them.  And  then  more  people 
came  in  and  sat  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  table,  a  gar- 
dener of  another  bulb  grower,  and  his  two  daughters. 
He  raised  his  hat  to  the  Van  Heigen  party,  and  received 
a  similar  salutation  in  return,  though  he  and  they  were 
careful  to  put  their  hats  on  again,  a  draught  being  a  thing 
much  feared.  Mijnheer  shook  hands  with  the  father,  and 
they  entered  into  conversation  about  the  weather;  the 
girls  looked  across  at  Denah  and  Anna,  and  more  still  at 
Julia,  whose  small,  slim  hands  they  evidently  admired. 

But  at  last  the  pooferchjes  were  all  eaten  and  paid 
for.  To  do  the  latter  the  notary,  Mijnheer  and  Joost  all 


POOFERCHJES    AND    JEALOUSY        125 

brought  out  large  purses  and  counted  out  small  coins 
with  care,  and  the  party  came  out,  making  way  for  new- 
comers. They  did  not  go  straight  home  again,  as  was 
first  intended,  Julia's  interest  and  gaiety  seemed  to  have 
infected  the  others — all  except  Denah,  and  they  walked 
for  a  little  while  among  the  booths  of  toys,  and  sweets, 
and  peepshows,  and  entertainments.  And  as  they  went, 
Denah  grew  more  and  more  silent,  watching  Julia,  who 
was  walking  with  Joost ;  the  arrangement  was  not  of  the 
English  girl's  seeking,  but  Denah  took  no  account  of  that. 
The  thing  of  which  she  did  take  account  was  that  they 
two  talked  as  they  walked  together,  he  as  well  as  she, 
but  both  with  the  ease  and  quick  comprehension  of  peo- 
ple who  have  talked  together  often. 

Mijnheer  stopped  to  look  at  the  merry-go-round ;  he  ad- 
mired the  cheerful  tune  that  it  played.  He  was  not  a  con- 
noisseur of  music;  a  barrel-organ  was  as  good  to  him 
as  the  organ  in  the  Groote  Kerk.  The  others  stopped  too ; 
Anna  exclaimed  on  the  life-like  and  clever  appearance  of 
the  bobbing  horses,  whereupon  her  father  suggested  that 
perhaps  the  girls  would  like  to  try  a  ride  on  the  machine, 
and  then  befel  the  crowning  mischief  of  the  evening. 
Julia  and  Anna  accepted  the  proposal  readily.  Denah 
declined ;  she  felt  in  no  humour  for  it ;  also  she  thought 
a  refusal  showed  a  superior  rnind — one  likely  to  appeal 
to  a  serious  young  man,  who  had  no  taste  for  the  gaudy, 
gay,  or  fast,  and  who  also  had  a  tendency  towards  sea- 
sickness. But,  alas,  for  the  fickleness  of  man!  While 
Denah  stood  with  her  father  and  Mijnheer,  Julia  rode 
round  the  centre  of  lighted  mirrors  on  a  prancing  wooden 
horse,  and  Joost — the  serious,  the  sometimes  seasick — 
rode  beside  her  on  a  dappled  grey,  to  the  familiar  old 
English  tune,  "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-a." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    HOLIDAY 

THE  Dunes  lay  some  little  distance  from  the  town,  a 
low,  but  suddenly-rising  hill  boundary,  that  shut  in  the 
basin  of  flat  land.  They  were  all  of  pure  sand,  though 
in  many  places  so  matted  with  vegetation  that  it  was 
hardly  recognisable  as  such.  Trees  grew  in  places,  espe- 
cially on  the  side  that  fronted  towards  the  town ;  the  way 
up  lay  through  a  dense  young  wood  of  beech  and  larch, 
and  a  short,  broad-leafed  variety  of  poplar.  There  was 
no  undergrowth,  but  between  the  dead  leaves  one  could 
see  that  a  dark  green,  short-piled  moss  had  managed  to 
find  a  hold  here  and  there,  though  so  smooth  was  it  that 
it  looked  more  like  old  enamel  than  a  natural  growth. 
The  trees  had  the  appearance  of  high  summer,  deeply,  in- 
tensely green,  so  that  they  seemed  almost  blackish  in 
mass.  There  was  no  breeze  among  them ;  even  the  dap- 
ples of  sunlight  which  found  their  way  through  the  roof 
of  leaves  hardly  stirred,  but  lay  in  light  patches,  like 
scattered  gold  upon  the  ground.  Flies  and  gnats  moved 
and  shimmered,  a  busy  life,  whose  small  voices  were  the 
only  sound  to  be  heard;  all  else  was  very  still,  with  the 
glorious  reposeful  stillness  of  full  summer ;  not  oppressive, 
without  weariness  or  exhaustion,  rather  as  if  the  whole 
creation  paused  at  this  zenith  to  look  round  on  its  works, 
and  beheld  and  saw  that  they  were  all  very  good. 

There  were  no  clear  paths,  apparently  few  people  went 

126 


THE    HOLIDAY  127 

that  way;  certainly  there  was  no  one  about  when  Julia 
and  Rawson-Clew  came.  It  is  true  they  saw  a  kind  of 
little  beer-garden  at  the  foot  of  the  slope,  but  there  was 
no  one  idling  about  it. 

"We  shall  have  to  come  back  here  for  lunch,"  Julia 
said. 

And  when  he  suggested  that  it  was  rather  a  pity  to 
have  to  retrace  their  steps,  she  answered,  "It  doesn't  mat- 
ter, we  are  not  going  anywhere  particular;  we  may  just 
as  well  wander  one  way  as  another.  When  we  get  to  the 
top  this  time  we  will  explore  to  the  right,  and  when  we 
get  there  again  after  lunch,  we  will  go  to  the  left ;  don't 
you  think  that  is  the  best  way  ?  This  is  to  be  a  holiday, 
you  know." 

"Is  a  real  holiday  like  a  dog's  wanderings?"  Rawson- 
Clew  inquired;  "bounded  by  no  purpose  except  dinner 
when  hungry?" 

Julia  thought  it  must  be  something  of  the  kind. 
"Though,"  she  said,  "dogs  always  seem  to  have  some  end 
in  view,  or  perhaps  a  dozen  ends,  for  though  they  tear 
off  after  an  imaginary  interest  as  if  there  was  nothing  else 
in  the  world,  they  get  tired  of  it,  or  else  start  another, 
and  forget  all  about  the  first." 

"That  must  also  be  part  of  the  essence  of  a  holiday," 
Rawson-Clew  said ;  "at  least,  one  would  judge  it  to  be  so ; 
boys  and  dogs,  the  only  things  in  nature  who  really  under- 
stand the  art  of  holiday-making,  chase  wild  geese,  and 
otherwise  do  nothing  of  any  account,  with  an  inexhaust- 
ible energy,  and  a  purposeful  determination  wonderful  to 
behold.  Also,  they  forget  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as 
to-morrow,  so  that  must  be  important  too." 

"I  can't  do  that,"  Julia  said. 

"You  might  try  when  you  get  to  the  top,"  he  suggested. 


128  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"I  will  try  then;  I  don't  think  I  could  do  anything  re- 
quiring an  effort  just  now." 

Julia  agreed  that  she  could  not  either,  and  they  went 
on  up  straight  before  them.  It  is  as  easy  to  climb  a  sand- 
hill in  one  place  as  in  another,  provided  you  stick  your 
feet  in  the  right  way,  and  do  not  mind  getting  a  good  deal 
of  sand  in  your  boots.  So  they  went  straight,  and  at  last 
got  clear  of  the  taller  trees,  and  were  struggling  in  thick- 
ets of  young  poplars,  and  other  sinewy  things.  The  sand 
was  firmer,  but  honeycombed  with  rabbit  holes,  and  tang- 
led with  brambles,  and  the  direction  was  still  upwards, 
though  the  growth  was  so  thick,  and  the  ground  so  bad, 
that  it  was  often  necessary  to  go  a  long  way  round.  But 
in  time  they  were  through  this  too,  and  really  out  on  the 
top.  Here  there  was  nothing  but  the  Dunes,  wide,  curv- 
ing land,  that  stretched  away  and  away,  a  tableland  of 
little  hollows  and  hills,  like  some  sea  whose  waves  have 
been  consolidated;  near  at  hand  its  colours  were  warm, 
if  not  vivid,  but  in  the  far  distance  it  grew  paler  as  the 
vegetation  became  less  and  less,  till,  far  away,  almost 
beyond  sight,  it  failed  to  grey  helm  grass,  and  then  alto- 
gether ceased,  leaving  the  sand  bare.  Behind  lay  the 
trees  through  which  they  had  come,  sloping  downwards 
in  banks  of  cool  shadows  to  the  map-like  land  and  the 
distant  town  below;  away  on  right  and  left  were  other 
groups  of  trees,  on  sides  of  hills  and  in  rounded  hollows, 
looking  small  enough  from  here,  but  in  reality  woods  of 
some  size.  Here  there  was  nothing ;  but,  above,  a  great 
blue  sky,  which  seemed  very  close;  and,  underfoot,  low- 
growing  Dune  roses  and  wild  thyme  which  filled  the 
warm,  still  air  with  its  matchless  scent ;  nothing  but  these, 
and  space,  and  sunshine,  and  silence. 

Julia  stopped  and  looked  round,  drawing  in  her  breath ; 


THE    HOLIDAY  129 

she  had  found  what  she  had  come  to  see— what,  perhaps, 
she  had  been  vaguely  wanting  to  find  for  a  long  time. 

"Isn't  it  good  ?"  she  said  at  last.  "Did  you  know  there 
was  so  much  room — so  much  room  anywhere?" 

Rawson-Clew  looked  in  the  direction  she  did;  he  had 
seen  so  much  of  the  world,  and  she  had  seen  so  little  of 
it — that  is,  of  the  part  which  is  solitary  and  beautiful. 
Yet  he  felt  something  of  her  enthusiasm  for  this  sunny, 
empty  place — than  which  he  had  seen  many  finer  things 
every  year  of  his  life. 

Perhaps  this  thought  occurred  to  her,  for  she  turned  to 
him  rather  wisfully:  "I  expect  it  does  not  seem  very 
much  to  you,"  she  said;  "you  have  seen  such  a  great 
deal." 

"I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen  anything  quite  like 
this,"  he  answered;  "and  if  I  had,  what  then?  One  does 
not  get  tired  of  things." 

Julia  looked  at  him  thoughtfully.  "I  wonder,"  she 
said,  "if  one  would?  If  one  would  get  weary  of  it,  and 
want  to  go  back  to  the  other  kind  of  life  ?" 

She  was  not  thinking  of  Dune  country,  rather  of  the 
simple  life  it  represented  to  her  just  then.  Rawson-Clew 
caught  the  note  of  seriousness  in  her  tone  and  reminded 
her  that  thought  for  the  past  or  future  was  no  part  of  a 
holiday.  "Remember,"  he  said,  "you  are  to-day  to  emu- 
late dogs  and  boys." 

She  laughed.  "How  am  I  to  begin  ?"  she  asked.  "How 
will  you  ?" 

"I  shall  sit  down,"  he  said;  "I  feel  I  could  be  incon- 
sequent much  better  if  I  sat  down  to  it ;  that  is  no  doubt 
because  I  am  past  my  first  youth." 

"No,"  she  said,  sitting  down  and  putting  her  hat  be- 
side her;  "it  is  because  your  folly-muscles  are  stiff  from 
want  of  use ;  you  have  played  lots  of  things,  I  expect — it  is 


130  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

part  of  your  necessary  equipment  to  be  able  to  do  so,  but  I 
doubt  if  you  have  ever  played  the  fool  systematically.  I 
don't  believe  you  have  ever  done,  and  certainly  never 
enjoyed  anything  inconsequent  or  foolish  in  your  life." 

"If  you  were  to  ask  me,"  he  returned,  "I  should  hardly 
say  you  excelled  in  that  direction  either.  How  many 
inconsequent  and  foolish  things  have  you  done  in  your 
life?" 

"Some,  and  I  should  like  to  do  some  more.  If  I  were 
alone  now,  do  you  know  what  I  should  do  ?  You  see  that 
deep  hollow  of  sparkling  white  sand?  I  should  take  off 
my  clothes  and  lie  there  in  the  sun." 

Rawson-Clew  turned  so  that  his  back  was  that  way. 
"Do  not  let  me  prevent  you,"  he  said. 

Julia  made  use  of  the  opportunity  to  empty  the  sand 
out  of  her  boots. 

He  looked  round  as  she  was  finishing  fastening  them. 
"But  why  put  them  on  again  ?"  he  asked. 

"Because  I  haven't  retired  from  the  world,  yet,"  she 
answered,  "and  so  I  can't  do  quite  all  I  like." 

"When  you  do  retire,  will  this  ideal  summer  costume 
also  be  included  in  the  programme  ?  Your  taste  in  dress 
grows  simpler;  quite  ancient  British,  in  fact." 

"The  ancient  Britons  wore  paint,  and  probably  had 
fashions  in  it ;  I  don't  think  of  imitating  them.  Tell  me," 
she  said,  turning  now  to  gather  the  sweet-scented  wild 
thyme,  "did  you  ever  really  do  anything  foolish  in  your 
life  ?  I  should  like  to  know." 

He  answered  her  that  he  had,  but  without  convincing 
her.  Afterwards,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that,  what- 
ever might  have  been  the  case  before,  he  that  day  quali- 
fied to  take  rank  with  any  one  in  the  matter. 

All  the  same,  it  was  a  very  pleasant  day,  and  they  both 
enjoyed  it  much;  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one  in  the  town 


THE    HOLIDAY  131 

or  its  environs  enjoyed  that  holiday  more  than  these 
two,  who,  from  different  reasons,  had  probably  never  had 
so  real  a  holiday  before.  They  wandered  over  the  great 
open  tract  of  land,  meeting  no  one ;  once  they  came  near 
enough  to  the  seaward  edge  to  see  the  distant  shimmer 
of  water;  once  they  found  themselves  in  the  part  where 
there  has  been  some  little  attempt  at  cultivation,  and  small 
patches  of  potatoes  struggle  for  life,  and  a  little  railway 
crosses  the  sandhills.  Twice  they  came  upon  the  road 
along  which,  on  working  days,  the  peasant  women  bring 
their  fish  to  market  in  the  town.  But  chiefly  they  kept 
to  the  small,  dense  woods,  where  the  sunlight  only 
splashed  the  ground ;  or  to  the  open  solitary  spaces  where 
the  bees  hummed  in  the  wild  thyme,  and  the  butterflies 
chased  each  other  over  the  low  rose  bushes. 

A  good  deal  after  midday,  at  a  time  dictated  entirely 
by  choice,  and  not  custom,  they  made  their  way  back  to 
the  beer  garden.  It  was  a  very  little  place,  scarcely  worthy 
of  the  name ;  the  smallest  possible  house,  more  like  a  barn 
than  anything  else,  right  in  the  shadow  of  the  wood. 
The  fare  to  be  obtained  was  bad  beer,  excellent  coffee, 
new  bread,  and  old  cheese;  but  it  was  enough,  supple- 
mented by  the  cakes  bought  yesterday  in  the  town ;  Julia 
knew  enough  of  the  ways  of  the  place  to  know  one  can 
bring  one's  own  food  to  such  places  without  giving  of- 
fence. As  in  the  morning,  when  they  first  passed  it,  there 
was  no  one  about,  every  one  had  gone  to  the  fair,  except 
one  taciturn  old  woman  who  brought  the  required  things 
and  then  shut  herself  in  the  house.  The  meal  was  spread 
under  the  trees  on  a  little  green-painted  table,  with  legs 
buried  deep  in  sand ;  there  were  two  high,  straight  chairs 
set  up  to  the  table,  and  a  wooden  footstool  put  by  one  for 
Julia,  who,  seeing  it,  said  this  was  certainly  a  picnic,  and 
it  was  really  necessary  to  eat  the  broodje  in  the  correct 


132  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

picnic  way.  Rawson-Clew  tried,  with  much  gravity,  but 
she  laughed  till  the  taciturn  old  woman  looked  out  of 
window,  and  wondered  who  they  were,  and  how  they  came 
to  be  here. 

When  the  meal  was  done,  they  went  back  again  up  the 
steep  slope,  and  then  away  on  the  left.  The  country  on 
this  side  was  less  open,  and  more  hilly,  deeper  hollows  and 
larger  woods,  still  there  was  not  much  difficulty  in  finding 
the  way.  The  latter  part  of  the  day  was  not  so  fine  as 
the  earlier,  the  sky  clouded  over,  and,  though  there  was 
still  no  wind,  the  air  grew  more  chilly.  They  hardly 
noticed  the  change,  being  in  a  dense  young  wood  where 
there  was  little  light,  but  Julia  lost  something  of  the  holi- 
day spirit,  and  Rawson-Clew  became  grave,  talking  more 
seriously  of  serious  things  than  had  ever  before  hap- 
pened in  their  curious  acquaintanceship.  They  sat  down 
to  rest  in  a  green  hollow,  and  Julia  began  to  arrange 
neatly  the  bunch  of  short-stemmed  thyme  flowers  that  she 
carried.  They  had  been  quiet  for  some  little  time,  she 
thinking  about  their  curious  acquaintance,  and  wondering 
when  it  would  end.  Of  course  it  would  end — she  knew 
that ;  it  was  a  thing  of  mind  only ;  there  was  very  little 
feeling  about  it — a  certain  mutual  interest  and  a  liking 
that  had  grown  of  late,  kindness  on  his  part,  gratitude  on 
hers,  nothing  more.  But  of  its  sort  it  had  grown  to  be 
intimate;  she  had  told  him  things  of  her  thoughts,  and 
of  herself,  and  her  people  too,  that  she  had  told  to  no 
one  else;  and  he,  which  was  perhaps  more  remarkable, 
had  sometimes  returned  the  compliment.  And  yet  by 
and  by — soon,  perhaps — he  would  go  away,  and  it  would 
be  as  if  they  had  never  met;  it  was  like  people  on  a 
steamer  together,  she  thought,  for  the  space  of  the  voy- 
age they  saw  each  other  daily,  saw  more  intimately  into 
each  other  than  many  blood  relations  did,  and  then,  when 


THE    HOLIDAY  133 

port  was  reached,  they  separated,  the  whole  thing  finished. 
She  wondered  when  this  would  finish,  and  just  then  Raw- 
son-Clew  spoke,  and  unconsciously  answered  her  thought. 

"I  am  going  back  to  England  soon,"  he  said. 

She  looked  up.  "Is  your  work  here  finished?"  she 
asked. 

"It  is  at  an  end,"  he  answered ;  "that  is  the  same  thing." 

Then  she,  her  intuition  enlightened  by  a  like  experience 
suddenly  knew  that  he,  too,  had  failed.  "You  mean  it 
cannot  be  done,"  she  said. 

He  opened  his  cigarette  case,  and  selected  a  cigarette 
carefully.  "May  I  smoke  ?"  he  asked ;  "there  are  a  good 
many  gnats  and  mosquitoes  about  here."  He  felt  for  a 
match,  and,  when  he  had  struck  it,  asked  impersonally, 
"Do  you  believe  things  cannot  be  done  ?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered;  "I  know  that  sometimes  they 
cannot ;  I  have  proved  it  to  myself." 

"You  have  not,  then,  much  opinion  of  the  people  who 
do  not  know  when  they  are  beaten?" 

"I  don't  think  I  have,''  she  answered ;  "you  cannot  help 
knowing  when  you  are  beaten  if  you  really  are — that  is, 
unless  you  are  a  fool.  Of  course,  if  you  are  only  beaten 
in  one  round,  or  one  effort,  that  is  another  thing;  you 
can  get  up  and  try  again.  But  if  you  are  really  and  truly 
beaten,  by  yourself,  or  circumstances,  or  something — 
well,  there's  and  end ;  there  is  nothing  but  to  get  up  and 
go  on." 

"Just  so;  in  that  case,  as  you  say,  there  is  not  much 
going  to  be  done,  except  going  home." 

Julia  nodded.  "But  I  can't  even  do  that,"  she  said.  "I 
am  beaten,  but  I  have  got  to  stay  here  all  the  same,  having 
nowhere  exactly  to  go." 

This  was  the  first  time  she  had  spoken  even  indirectly 
of  her  own  future  movements.  "But,  perhaps,"  he  sug- 


134  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

gested,  "if  you  stay,  you  may  find  a  back  way  to  your 
object  after  all." 

She  shook  her  head.  "It  is  the  back  way  I  tried.  No, 
there  is  no  way ;  it  is  blocked.  I  know,  because  it  is  my- 
self that  blocks  it." 

"In  that  case,"  he  said,  "I'm  afraid  I  must  agree  with 
you;  there  is  no  way;  oneself  is  about  the  most  insur- 
mountable block  of  all."  I  might  have  known  that  you 
were  hardly  likely  to  make  any  mistake  as  to  whether 
you  were  really  beaten  or  not." 

"I  should  not  think  it  was  a  mistake  you  were  likely 
to  make  either,"  she  observed. 

"You  think  not  ?  Well,  I  had  no  chance  this  time ;  the 
fact  has  been  made  pretty  obvious  to  me." 

She  did  not  say  she  was  sorry;  in  her  opinion  it  was 
an  impertinence  to  offer  condolence  to  failure.  "I  sup- 
pose," she  said,  after  a  pause,  "there  is  not  a  back  way — 
a  door,  or  window,  even,  to  your  object?" 

"Unfortunately,  no.  There  are  no  windows  at  the 
back;  and  as  to  the  door — like  you,  it  was  that  which  I 
tried,  with  the  result  that  recently — yesterday,  in  fact — I 
was  metaphorically  shown  out." 

Julia  had  learnt  enough  by  this  time,  though  she  had 
not  been  told  for  certain,  that  her  first  suspicions  were 
right;  to  be  sure,  it  was  the  explosive  which  took  Raw- 
son-Clew  to  the  little  village  evening  after  evening.  She 
had  gathered  as  much  from  various  things  which  had 
been  said,  though  she  did  not  know  at  all  how  he  was  try- 
ing to  get  it,  nor  in  what  way  he  had  introduced  himself 
to  Herr  Van  de  Greutz.  Whatever  method  he  had  tried 
it  was  now  clear  he  had  failed ;  no  doubt  been  found  out, 
for  the  chemist,  unlike  Joost  Van  Heigen,  was  the  very 
reverse  of  unsuspecting,  and  thoroughly  on  the  look-out 
for  other  nations  who  wanted  to  share  his  discovery.  For 


THE     HOLIDAY  135 

a  moment  Julia  wished  she  had  been  in  Rawson-Clew's 
place;  of  course  she,  too,  might  have  failed — probably 
would;  she  had  no  reason  to  think  she  would  succeed 
where  he  could  not;  but  she  certainly  would  not  have 
failed  in  this  for  the  reason  she  had  failed  with  the  blue 
daffodil.  The  attempt  would  have  been  so  thoroughly 
well  worth  making;  there  would  have  been  some  sport 
in  it,  and  a  foe  worthy  of  her  steel.  In  spite  of  her  desire 
for  the  simple  life,  she  had  too  much  real  ability  for  this 
sort  of  intrigue,  and  too  much  past  practice  in  subterfuge, 
not  to  experience  lapses  of  inclination  for  it  when  she  saw 
such  work  being  done,  and  perhaps  not  done  well.  Of 
this,  however,  she  naturally  did  not  speak  to  Rawson- 
Clew;  she  rearranged  her  flowers  in  silence  for  a  little 
while,  at  last  she  said — 

"It  is  hateful  to  fail." 

"It  is  ignominious,  certainly;  one  does  not  wish  to 
blazon  it  from  the  housetops;  still,  doubtless  like  your 
crochet  work,  it  is  good  discipline." 

"Maybe,"  Julia  allowed,  but  without  conviction.  "Yours 
seems  a  simple  failure,  mine  is  a  compound  one.  If  it  is 
ignominious,  as  you  say,  to  fail,  it  would  have  been 
equally  ignominious  in  another  way  if  I  had  succeded.  I 
could  not  have  been  satisfied  either  way." 

"That  sounds  very  complicated,"  Rawson-Clew  said; 
"but  then,  I  imagine  you  are  a  complicated  young  per- 
son." 

"And  you  are  not." 

"Not  young,  certainly,"  he  said,  lighting  another  cigar- 
ette. 

"Nor  complicated,"  she  insisted;  "you  are  built  on 
straight  lines ;  there  are  given  things  you  can  do  and  can't 
do,  would  do  and  would  not  do,  and  might  do  in  an  emer- 


136  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

gency.  It  is  a  fine  kind  of  person  to  be,  but  it  is  not  the 
kind  which  surprises  itself." 

Rawson-Clew  blew  a  smoke-ring  into  the  air;  he  was 
smiling  a  little. 

"How  old  are  you?"  he  said.  "Twenty?  Almost 
twenty-one,  is  it?  And  until  you  were  sixteen  you 
knocked  about  a  bit  ?  Sixteen  is  too  young  to  come  much 
across  the  natural  man — not  the  artful  dodging  man,  or 
the  man  of  civilisation,  but  the  natural,  primitive  man, 
own  blood  relation  to  Adam  and  the  king  of  the  Canni- 
bal Islands.  You  may  meet  him  by  and  by,  and  if  you 
do  he  may  surprise  you ;  he  is  full  of  surprises — he  rather 
surprises  himself,  that  is,  if  his  local  habitat  is  ordinarily 
an  educated,  decent  person." 

"You  have  not  got  a  natural  man,"  Julia  said  shortly ; 
she  was  annoyed,  without  quite  knowing  why,  by  his  man- 
ner. 

"Have  I  not?  Quite  likely;  certainly,  he  has  never 
bothered  me,  but  I  should  not  like  to  count  on  him.  Since 
we  have  got  to  personalities,  may  I  say  that  you  have  got 
a  natural  woman,  and  plenty  of  her ;  also  a  marked  taste 
for  the  works  of  the  machine,  in  preference  to  the  face 
usually  presented  to  the  company  ?" 

"The  works  are  the  only  interesting  part;  I  don't  care 
for  the  drawing-room  side  of  things ;  they  are  cultivated, 
but  they  are  too  much  on  the  skin.  I  would  much  rather 
be  a  stoker,  or  an  engineer,  than  sit  on  deck  all  day  and 
talk  about  Florentine  art,  and  the  Handel  Festival,  and 
Egyptology,  and  the  gospel  of  Tolstoy,  and  play  cricket 
and  quoits,  and  dance  a  little,  and  sing  a  little,  and  flirt 
a  little,  ever  so  nicely.  Oh,  there  are  lots  of  girls  who 
can  do  all  those  things,  and  do  them  equally  well ;  I  know 
a  few  who  can,  well  off,  well-bred  girls — you  must  know 
a  great  many.  They  are  clever  to  begin  with,  and  they 


THE    HOLIDAY  137 

are  taught  that  way;  it  is  a  perfect  treat  to  meet  them 
and  watch  them,  but  I  never  want  to  imitate  them,  even 
if  I  could — and  there  is  no  danger  of  that.  I  would 
rather  be  in  the  engine-room,  with  my  coat  off,  a  bit 
greasy  and  very  profane,  and  doing  something.  There 
would  be  more  flesh  and  blood  there,  even  if  it  were  a 
bit  grubby ;  I  believe  I'm  more  at  home  with  people  who 
can  do — well,  what's  necessary,  even  if  it  is  not  exactly 
nice." 

Rawson-Clew  knew  exactly  the  kind  of  woman  she  had 
described  for  the  deck — he  met  them  often;  charming 
creatures,  far  as  the  poles  asunder  from  the  girl  who 
spoke  of  them ;  he  liked  them — in  moderation,  and  in  their 
place,  much  as  his  forebears  of  fifty  years  ago  had  liked 
theirs,  the  delicate,  sensitive  creatures  of  that  era.  He 
had  never  regarded  Julia  in  that  light ;  he  found  her  cer- 
tainly more  entertaining  as  a  companion,  though  also 
very  far  short  of  the  standard  as  a  woman  and  an  orna- 
ment. 

"The  people  in  the  engine-room,"  he  observed,  "would 
certainly  be  more  useful  in  an  emergency ;  still,  life  is  not 
made  up  entirely  of  emergencies." 

"No,"  Julia  answered ;  "and  in  between  times  such  peo- 
ple are  better  not  on  show — I  know  that ;  that  is  why  I  do 
not  care  for  the  drawing-room  side  of  things,  I  don't 
know  enough  to  shine  in  them." 

"Do  you  think  it  is  a  matter  of  knowledge  ?"  he  asked, 
"or  inclination?  If  it  comes  to  knowledge  I  should  say 
you  had  a  rather  remarkable  stock  of  an  unusual  sort,  and 
at  first  hand.  That  may  not  be  what  is  required  for  a 
complete  drawing-room  success,  though  I  am  not  sure 
that  it  is  not  more  interesting — say  for  an  excursion — 
than  a  flitting  glance  at  the  subjects  you  mention,  and 
about  eighteen  or  twenty  more  that  you  did  not," 


138  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Julia  looked  up,  half  pleased,  doubtful  as  to  whether 
or  not  to  interpret  this  as  a  compliment ;  she  never  knew 
quite  how  much  he  meant  of  what  he  said;  his  manner 
was  exactly  the  same,  whether  he  was  in  fun  or  in  earnest. 
But  if  she  thought  of  asking  him  now  she  was  prevented, 
for  at  that  moment  Mr.  Gillat's  watch  slipped  out  of  her 
belt  into  her  lap,  and  she  saw  the  time. 

"How  late  is  it!"  she  exclaimed.  "We  ought  to  have 
started  half-an-hour  ago ;  it  will  take  me  two  hours,  and 
more,  to  get  home  from  here,  even  if  I  go  by  the  tram  in 
the  town." 

She  rose  as  she  spoke,  and  he  rose  more  slowly. 

"Shall  I  take  your  flowers  for  you?"  he  asked.  "They 
seem  rather  inclined  to  tumble  about ;  don't  you  think  they 
would  be  safer  in  my  pocket  ?  As  you  say  you  are  going 
to  dry  them,  it  won't  matter  crushing  them." 

She  gave  them  to  him,  and  he  put  the  sweet-smelling 
bunch  into  his  pocket,  then  they  started  for  the  edge  of 
the  wood. 

"It  is  much  colder,"  Julia  said;  "and  the  sun  is  all 
gone;  I  suppose  the  clouds  have  been  coming  gradually, 
but  I  did  not  notice  before.  If  it  is  going  to  rain,  we 
shall  get  decidedly  wet  before  we  get  back." 

"I  am  afraid  so,"  he  agreed ;  "you  have  no  coat." 

She  told  him  that  did  not  matter,  she  did  not  mind  get- 
ting wet,  and  she  spoke  with  a  cheerful  buoyancy  that 
carried  conviction. 

When  they  reached  the  outskirts  of  the  wood,  however, 
they  saw  there  was  not  much  chance  of  rain,  but  a  much 
worse  evil  threatened.  All  the  distance  on  the  seaward 
side  was  blotted  out,  a  fine  white  mist  shut  out  the  curv- 
ing land  in  that  direction.  It  was  blowing  up  towards 
them,  rolling  down  the  little  hills  in  billowy  puffs,  and 


THE    HOLIDAY  139 

lying  filmy,  yet  dense,  in  the  hollows,  moved  by  a  wind 
unfelt  here. 

"A  sea  fog,"  Julia  said ;  "I  wonder  how  far  it  is  com- 
ing." 

Rawson-Clew  wondered  too;  he  thought,  as  she  did, 
that  there  was  every  chance  of  its  coming  far  and  fast, 
but  it  did  not  seem  necessary  to  either  of  them  to  say 
anything  so  unpleasantly  and  obviously  probable. 

They  set  out  homewards  as  fast  as  they  could;  it  was 
a  long  way  to  the  place  where  they  had  climbed  up,  un- 
fortunately all  across  open  country,  entirely  without  roads 
or  definite  paths,  and  the  drifting  sea  fog  was  coming  up 
fast,  bound,  it  would  seem,  the  same  way.  Soon  it  was 
upon  them ;  they  felt  its  advance  in  the  chill  that,  like  cold 
fingers,  laid  hold  on  everything ;  it  came  quite  silently  up 
from  behind,  without  noticeable  wind,  eerily  creeping  up 
and  enfolding  everything,  putting  a  white  winding-sheet 
not  about  the  earth  only,  but  the  very  air  also.  The  cot- 
ton blouse  that  Julia  wore  became  limp  and  wet  as  if  it 
had  been  dipped  in  water ;  she  could  see  the  fog  condens- 
ing in  beads  on  her  companion's  coat  almost  like  hoar 
frost ;  it  lay  on  every  low-growing  rose  bush  and  bramble 
that  they  stepped  upon,  a  curious  transformer  of  all  near 
objects,  a  complete  obliterator  of  all  more  distant  ones. 

They  pushed  on  as  quickly  as  might  be,  climbing  little 
hills,  descending  into  hollows;  stumbling  among  rabbit 
holes,  threading  their  way  through  thickets;  apparently 
finding  something  amusing  in  the  patriarchal  colonies  of 
rabbit  burrows  that  tripped  them  up,  and  stopping  to 
argue,  though  hardly  in  earnest,  as  to  whether  they  had 
passed  that  way  or  not,  when  some  white-barked  tree,  or 
other  landmark,  loomed  suddenly  out  of  the  thickening 
mist.  Once  it  seemed  the  fog  was  going  to  lift;  Julia 
thought  she  saw  the  outline  of  a  distant  hill,  but  either 


140  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

it  was  ciosed  in  again  directly,  or  else  she  mistook  a 
thicker  fold  of  cloud  for  a  more  solid  object,  for  it  was 
lost  almost  before  she  pointed  it  out. 

For  something  over  two  hours  they  walked  and  stum- 
bled, and  went  up  small  ascents  and  came  down  small 
declines ;  then  suddenly  they  came  upon  the  white-barked 
tree  again.  It  was  the  same  one  that  they  had  seen  more 
than  an  hour  and  a  half  ago ;  Rawson-Clew  recognised  it 
by  a  peculiar  warty  growth  where  the  branches  forked; 
they  had  now  approached  it  from  the  other  side,  but 
clearly  it  was  the  same  one,  and  they  had  come  round  in 
a  circle. 

He  stopped  and  pointed  it  out  to  her.  "I  am  afraid," 
he  said,  "we  had  better  do  what  is  recommended  when 
the  clouds  come  down  on  the  mountains." 

"And  that  is?"  Julia  asked. 

"Sit  down  and  wait  till  they  shift." 

She  could  not  but  see  the  advisability  of  this,  also  she 
was  very  tired,  the  going  for  these  two  hours  had  not 
been  easy,  and  it  had  come  at  the  end  of  a  long  day.  She 
would  not  admit,  even  to  herself,  that  she  was  tired,  but 
she  was,  so  she  agreed  to  the  waiting ;  after  all,  it  was  im- 
possible to  pretend  longer  that  they  were  going  to  get 
home  easily,  and  were  not  really  hopelessly  astray. 

"We  will  go  a  little  way  in  among  the  trees,"  Rawson- 
Clew  said;  "it  is  more  sheltered,  and  we  shall  be  able 
to  find  the  way  quite  as  easily  from  one  place  as  another 
when  the  fog  lifts." 

They  found  as  sheltered  a  spot  as  they  could,  and  sat 
down  under  a  big  tree ;  as  they  did  so  his  hand  came  in 
contact  with  Julia's  wet  sleeve  and  cold  arm.  "How 
cold  you  are !"  he  said.  "You  have  nothing  on." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  have,"  she  assured  him.  "I  did  not  avail 
myself  of  your  permission  this  morning." 


THE    HOLIDAY  141 

He  took  off  his  coat  and  put  it  round  her. 

But  she  threw  it  off  again.  "That  won't  do  at  all,"  she 
said ;  "now  you  have  nothing  on,  and  that  is  much  more 
improper ;  women  may  sit  in  their  shirt  sleeves,  men  may 
not." 

"Don't  be  absurd!"  he  said  authoritatively;  "you  are 
to  keep  that  on,"  and  he  wrapped  it  about  her  with  a 
decision  that  brought  home  to  her  her  youth  and  small- 
ness. 

"You  are  shutting  all  the  damp  in,"  she  protested,  shift- 
ing her  point  of  attack,  "and  that  is  very  unwholesome.  I 
shan't  get  warm ;  I  haven't  any  warmth  to  start  with ;  you 
are  wasting  what  you  have  got  to  no  purpose." 

But  he  did  not  waste  it,  for  eventually  it  was  arranged 
that  they  sat  close  together  under  the  tree,  with  the  coat 
put  as  far  as  it  would  go  over  both  of  them.  Rawson- 
Clew  was  not  given  to  thinking  how  things  looked,  he  did 
what  he  thought  necessary,  or  advisable,  without  taking 
any  thought  of  that  kind ;  so  it  did  not  occur  to  him  how 
this  arrangement  might  look  to  an  unprejudiced  observer, 
had  there  been  any  such.  But  Julia,  with  her  faculty  for 
seeing  herself  as  others  saw  her,  was  much,  though 
silently,  amused  as  she  thought  of  the  Van  Heigens.  Poor, 
kind  folks,  they  were  doubtless  already  wondering  what 
could  have  become  of  her;  if  they  could  only  have  seen 
her  sitting  thus,  with  an  unknown  man,  what  would  their 
Dutch  propriety  have  said? 

"Do  you  suppose  this  fog  will  be  in  the  town?"  Raw- 
son-Clew  said,  after  a  time. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "I  should  think  not ;  from  what  I 
have  heard,  I  think  it  is  very  unlikely." 

"Then  the  Van  Heigens  won't  know  what  has  become 
of  you?" 

"Not  a  bit  in  the  world;  they  don't  even  know  where 


142  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

I  was  going  to-day.  I  did  not  tell  them ;  I  am  afraid  they 
will  be  rather  uneasy  about  me,  but  perhaps  not  so  very 
much,  they  know  by  this  time  I  can  take  care  of  myself ; 
besides,  I  shall  be  home  before  bed-time,  if  the  fog  lifts." 

Rawson-Clew  agreed,  and  they  talked  of  other  things. 
Julia  held  the  opinion  that  when  an  evil  has  to  be  en- 
dured, not  cured,  there  is  no  good  in  discussing  it  over 
and  over  again;  she  had  a  considerable  gift  for  making 
the  best  of  other  things  besides  opportunities. 

But  the  fog  did  not  lift  soon ;  it  did  not  grow  denser, 
but  it  did  not  grow  less ;  it  just  lay  soft  and  chilly,  casting 
a  white  pall  of  silence  on  all  things,  closing  day  before 
its  time,  and  making  it  impossible  to  say  when  evening 
ended  and  night  began.  Gradually  the  two  who  waited 
for  its  lifting  fell  into  silence,  and  Julia,  tired  out,  at  last 
dropped  asleep,  her  head  tilted  back  against  the  tree- 
trunk,  her  shoulder  pressed  close  against  Rawson-Clew 
under  the  shelter  of  his  coat. 

He  did  not  move,  he  was  afraid  of  waking  her ;  he  sat 
watching,  waiting  in  the  eerie  white  stillness,  until  at  last 
the  space  before  him  altered,  and  gradually  between  the 
trees  he  saw  the  faint  outline  of  a  hill,  dark  against  the 
dark  sky.  Slowly  the  white  mist  rolled  from  it,  a  bil- 
lowy, ghostly  thing,  that  left  a  black,  vague  world,  only 
dimly  seen.  He  looked  at  the  sleeping  girl,  then  at  the 
hill ;  the  fog  was  clearing,  there  was  no  doubt  about  that ; 
soon  it  would  be  quite  gone,  but  it  would  be  a  very  dark 
night,  the  stars  would  hardly  show,  and  the  moon  was 
now  long  down.  He  was  not  at  all  sure  of  being  able  to 
find  his  way  across  this  undulating  country,  so  entirely 
devoid  of  prominent  features,  in  a  very  dark  night.  Rather 
he  was  nearly  sure  that  he  could  not  do  it;  and  though 
he  had  a  by  no  means  low  opinion  of  Julia's  abilities,  he 
did  not  think  that  she  could  either.  Also,  with  a  sense 


THE    HOLIDAY  143 

of  dramatic  fitness  equal  to  that  of  the  girl's  he  thought 
their  arrival  in  the  town  would  be  rather  ill-timed  if  they 
started  now.  It  would  be  wiser  to  wait  till  after  it  was 
light,  though  dawn  was  not  so  very  early  now,  the  sum- 
mer being  far  advanced.  So  he  decided,  and  Julia  slept 
peacefully  on,  her  head  dropping  lower  and  lower,  till 
finally  it  reached  his  shoulder.  But  he  did  not  move ;  he 
left  it  resting  there,  and  waited,  thinking  of  nothing  per- 
haps, or  anything ;  or  perhaps  of  that  unknown  quantity, 
the  natural  man,  which  has  a  way  of  stirring  sometimes 
even  in  the  most  civilised,  at  night  time.  So  he  sat  and 
watched  for  the  dawn. 


CHAPTER  X 

TO-MORROW 

IT  was  a  bright  sunny  morning,  and,  though  the  third 
and  last  day  of  the  fair,  people  went  to  their  business  as 
usual.  The  Dutch  are  early  risers,  and  set  about  their 
day's  work  in  good  time ;  but  even  had  they  been  the  re- 
verse, the  latest  of  them  would  have  been  about  before 
Julia  and  Rawson-Clew  reached  the  outskirts  of  the  town. 
They  had  stopped  for  breakfast  at  the  first  village  they 
came  to  after  leaving  the  Dunes,  this  on  the  principle  of 
being  hung  for  a  sheep  rather  than  a  lamb.  It  did  not 
seem  to  matter  being  a  little  later  considering  the  neces- 
sarily unreasonable  hour  of  their  return ;  also  Julia,  with 
the  instinct  of  her  family  for  detail ;  preferred  to  set  her- 
self to  rights  so  as  to  present  the  best  appearance  possible 
when  she  arrived  at  the  Van  Heigens'.  It  was  not  natural, 
of  course,  that  a  person  should  appear  too  neat  and  or- 
derly after  a  night  of  adventure,  lost  on  the  Dunes ;  but 
the  reverse  was  not  becoming.  Julia  hit  the  medium  be- 
tween the  two  with  a  nicety  which  might  have  cost  one 
not  a  Polkington  some  thought,  but  to  one  of  them  was 
merely  the  natural  thing. 

Together  Julia  and  Rawson-Clew  walked  to  the  out- 
skirts of  the  town.  Their  ways  parted  there — his  to  the 
left,  hers  to  the  right ;  it  was  the  port  of  which  she  had 
thought  yesterday,  the  place  of  final  separation.  He  had 
proposed  to  go  with  her  to  the  Van  Heigens,  so  as  to  bear 

144 


TO-MORROW  145 

testimony  to  what  had  befallen,  and  to  assure  them  that 
she  was  quite  safe ;  but  she  would  not  have  this,  she  felt 
she  could  manage  very  much  better  without  him,  his 
presence  would  only  require  a  good  deal  of  extra  explana- 
tion, none  too  easy  to  give.  He  guessed  the  reason  of  her 
refusal  and  saw  the  wisdom  of  it,  although  he  felt  annoyed 
that  she  had,  as  he  now  perceived  she  must,  concealed 
their  earlier  acquaintance.  It  might  have  been  advisable, 
seeing  Dutch  notions  of  propriety ;  but  it  placed  the  mat- 
ter in  a  rather  invidious  light,  and  also  began  to  bring 
home  to  him  the  fact,  which  grew  very  much  more  evi- 
dent before  the  day  was  over,  that  he  had  distinguished 
himself  by  an  act  of  really  remarkable  folly. 

They  had  almost  reached  the  town,  in  fact  had  passed 
some  small  houses,  the  dwelling-places  of  carriage  prop- 
rietors and  washerwomen,  when  a  girl  stepped  out  of  a 
doorway  some  distance  ahead  of  them.  She  glanced  in 
their  direction,  then  stared. 

"There's  Denah,"  Julia  said;  she  did  not  speak  with 
consternation  though  Denah  was  about  the  last  person 
she  wanted  to  see  just  then.  Consternation  is  a  waste  of 
time  and  energy  when  you  are  found  out,  a  bold  face  and 
immediate  actions  are  usually  best.  Julia  waved  her  hand 
in  cheerful  greeting  to  the  Dutch  girl. 

But  Denah  did  not  return  the  greeting;  instead,  after 
her  stare  of  astonished  recognition,  she  turned  and  set 
off  up  the  road  towards  where  it  joined  a  more  important 
street  with  trams,  which  ran  into  the  town. 

"Hulloah?"  Julia  said  softly,  and  quick  as  thought  she 
turned  too,  and  the  hand  that  had  waved  to  Denah  was 
signaling  to  a  carriage  which  at  that  moment  drove  out  of 
a  stable-yard  near.  A  light  had  come  into  her  eyes,  a 
dancing  light  like  the  gleam  on  a  sword-blade.  There 
was  a  little  wee  smile  about  her  lips,  too,  which  somehow 


146  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

brought  to  Rawson-Clew's  mind  a  man  he  once  knew  who 
had  sung  softly  to  himself  all  the  time  he  prepared  for 
the  brigands  who  were  known  to  be  about  to  rush  his 
camp. 

"She'll  take  a  tram,"  Julia  said  gaily,  looking  towards 
the  speeding  figure;  "she  is  too  careful  to  waste  her 
money  even  to  spite  any  one  of  whom  she  is  jealous." 

The  cab  drew  up,  and  Julia,  not  failing  to  see  Denah 
fulfil  her  words  at  the  junction  of  the  street,  got  in.  Raw- 
son-Clew  followed  her.  She  would  have  prevented  him. 

"Don't  come,"  she  said ;  "I  don't  want  you.    Good-bye." 

But  he  insisted.  "I  certainly  am  coming,"  he  said,  and 
ordered  the  man  to  drive  on  into  the  town,  telling  Julia 
to  give  the  address. 

She  did  so,  weighing  in  her  mind  the  while  the  chances 
of  Rawson-Clew's  knowledge  of  Dutch  being  equal  to 
following  all  that  was  said  when  three  people  spoke  at 
once,  all  of  them  in  a  great  state  of  excitement.  She 
thought  it  was  possible  he  would  not  master  every  detail, 
but  at  the  same  time  she  did  not  wish  him  to  try ;  it  would 
be  insupportable  to  have  him  dragged  into  this,  and  in 
return  for  his  kindness  to  her  have  a  dozen  vulgar  and 
ridiculous  things  said  and  insinuated. 

"Look  here,"  she  said,  "there  is  not  any  need  for  you 
to  come,  I  can  do  better  without  you,  I  can  indeed.  I 
have  got  to  explain  things,  of  course,  but,  as  I  told  you 
before,  I  have  had  some  practice  at  dodging  and  explain- 
ing. I  shall  reach  the  Van  Heigens'  before  Denah,  so  I 
shall  get  the  first  hearing,  that's  all  I  want,  I  can  explain 
beautifully." 

"You  cannot  explain  me  away,"  Rawson-Clew  an- 
swered. "I  know  I  was  not  to  have  figured  in  the  original 
account,  that  is  obvious,  but  it  is  equally  obvious  that  I 
must  figure  in  this  one.  I  prefer  to  give  it  myself." 


TO-MORROW  147 

"Oh,  but  that  won't  do  at  all!"  Julia  said.  "Please 
leave  it  to  me,  it  would  be  nothing  to  me,  I  am  used  to 
tight  places,  and  it  would  be  an  insufferable  annoyance  to 
you.  I  really  don't  want  you  to  suffer  for  your  kindness 
to  me — you  have  no  idea  what  absurd  and  ridiculous 
things  they  will  say." 

Rawson-Clew  had  been  polishing  his  eyeglass,  he  put  it 
back  in  his  eye  before  he  spoke.  "My  dear  child,"  he 
said;  in  spite  of  the  sheltered  life  with  which  you  credit 
me,  I  assure  you  I  have  a  very  clear  idea  of  the  kind 
of  things  they  will  say." 

"Then  for  goodness  sake,  leave  it  to  me,"  Julia  said, 
losing  her  temper;  "I  can  do  it  a  great  deal  better  than 
you  can ;  I'm  not  honest,  and  you  are,  and  that's  a  handi- 
cap." 

"In  these  cases,"  Rawson-Clew  answered  imperturb- 
ably,  "honesty  requires  the  consideration  of  the  lady  first 
and  truth  afterwards — a  long  way  after.  Let  me  know 
what  you  want  told  and  I  will  tell  it — with  evidence — I 
suppose  you  are  equal  to  evidence  ?" 

Julia  laughed,  but  without  much  mirth.  "I  do  wish  you 
would  not  come,"  she  said. 

But  he  did,  and  they  drove  togther  through  the  town, 
past  the  bulb  gardens,  to  the  wooden  house  with  the  dark- 
tiled  roof.  There  Rawson-Clew  paid  the  coachman  and 
dismissed  the  carriage  while  Julia  rang  the  bell. 

In  time  the  servant  came  to  the  door.  "Ach !"  she  cried 
at  the  sight  of  Julia,  and,  "G-r-r-r !"  and  other  exclama- 
tions, uttered  very  gutturally  and  with  upraised  hands. 
She  was  a  country  girl  from  some  remote  district,  and 
she  spoke  a  very  unintelligible  patois;  at  least  Rawson- 
Clew  found  it  so,  his  companion,  apparently,  was  used 
to  it. 

Julia  listened  to  the  exclamations,  and  apparently  to 


H8  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

congratulations  on  her  safe  return,  said  in  a  friendly  man- 
ner that  she  had  a  terrible  adventure,  and  then  asked 
where  Mevrouw  was. 

Mevrouw  was  out,  and  Mijnheer  was  out  too;  a  tor- 
rent more  information  followed,  but  Julia  did  not  pay 
much  attention  to  it,  she  turned  to  Rawson-Clew  with  the 
smile  on  her  lips  with  which  she  laughed  at  herself. 

"Denah  saved  her  money  and  won  her  move,"  she  said ; 
"it  serves  me  right.  I  under-rated  her — this  is  what  al- 
ways comes  of  under-rating  the  enemy." 

"Do  you  mean  she  knew  where  these  people  are?"  Raw- 
son-Clew asked. 

"That  is  about  it,  she  knew  and  I  did  not." 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"Wait  till  they  come  back,  there  is  nothing  else." 

He  moved  as  if  he  thought  to  follow  her  into  the  house, 
but  she  did  not  approve  of  that.  "You  cannot  wait  with 
me,"  she  said ;  "it  is  one  thing  to  bring  me  home,  quite 
another  to  wait  with  me  here." 

He,  however,  thought  differently,  but  he  did  not  argue 
the  point.  "Thank  you,"  he  said,  "I  prefer  to  wait;  I 
consider  I  am  conducting  this  now,  not  you." 

He  was  a  little  annoyed  by  her  ridiculous  persistence, 
but  she  looked  at  him  with  the  dancing  lights  coming 
back  in  her  eyes.  "Oh,  well,  if  you  prefer  to  wait,"  she 
said,  "but  I'm  afraid  you  must  do  it  alone."  And  before 
he  realised  what  she  was  doing,  she  had  run  off,  down 
the  path,  across  an  empty  flower-bed  and  among  some 
brushes  behind. 

In  considerable  anger  he  turned  to  follow  her,  but  he 
pulled  himself  up ;  there  was  very  little  use  in  that  and  no 
need  for  it  either;  he  was  sure  she  was  far  too  skilful  a 
tactician  to  imperil  an  affair  by  unwise  flight;  this  was 
a  blind  merely — unless,  of  course,  she  thought  of  setting 


TO-MORROW  149 

out  to  find  these  Dutch  people,  wherever  they  might  be. 
He  asked  the  staring  servant  where  her  master  and  mis- 
tress were ;  it  took  time  for  him  to  make  out  her  answers, 
but  at  last  he  did.  Mijnheer  was  at  a  place  (or  house) 
with  a  name  he  had  never  before  heard,  and  would  have 
been  puzzled  to  say  now  from  this  one  hearing.  It  was 
a  distant  bulb  farm,  and  Mijnheer  had  gone  there  on 
business ;  the  fact  that  Julia  had  not  returned  home  natur- 
ally did  not  keep  the  good  man  from  his  work.  These 
details  Rawson-Clew  did  not  know;  the  name  only  was 
given  to  him,  and  that  conveyed  nothing.  Joost,  he  was 
told,  was  somewhere  in  the  bulb  gardens,  where,  seemed 
unknown ;  Mevrouw  was  at  the  house  of  the  notary.  Who 
the  notary  was,  and  where  he  lived,  and  why  she  had 
gone  there  were  alike  as  abscure  to  this  inquirer  as  was 
Julia's  probable  destination.  He  felt  that  she  might  have 
set  out  to  find  any  one  of  these  three  people,  or  she  might 
be  lying  in  wait,  like  a  foolish  child,  till  he  had  gone. 
He  went  down  the  drive ;  outside  the  gate  he  saw  some 
idlers  who  had  been  there  when  he  drove  in  a  little  while 
back;  he  asked  them  if  any  one  answering  to  the  girl's 
description  had  come  out.  They  told  him  "ja,"  and  they 
also  told  him  which  direction  she  had  taken;  it  was  the 
way  that  led  to  the  market,  not  the  residential  part  of 
the  town. 

He  was  no  better  off  for  this  information;  there 
seemed  nothing  to  be  done.  It  would  have  been  little 
short  of  absurd,  if,  indeed,  it  had  not  been  seriously  com- 
promising to  Julia,  for  him  to  present  himself  at  the 
house  of  the  notary — when  he  could  find  it — and  tell 
Vrouw  Van  Heigen  he  had  brought  Julia  home  and  she 
was  afraid  to  appear  with  him.  Either  he  and  she  must 
act  together  and  appear  together,  or  else  he  must,  as  she 
desired  and  now  made  necessary,  keep  out  of  it  alto- 


150  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

gether.  Considerably  annoyed  with  the  girl,  but  at  the 
same  time  uneasy  about  her,  he  went  to  his  hotel. 

As  the  morning  wore  on,  the  annoyance  lessened  and 
the  uneasiness  grew.  After  all  he  was  not  sure  that  Julia 
had  thrown  away  much  by  refusing  to  have  the  support  of 
his  company;  had  they  two  been  there  waiting  for  the 
Van  Heigens'  return,  or  had  they  set  out  together  to  find 
them,  he  was  not  sure  his  presence  would  have  been  any 
help  in  the  face  of  the  jealous  Dutch  girl's  accusations.  A 
jealous  woman,  even  an  ordinarily  foolish  one,  is  a  very 
dangerous  thing  when  she  is  attacking  a  fancied  rival 
with  a  chance  of  encompassing  her  overthrow.  Denah 
would  have  got  her  tale  told,  her  case  proven,  indigna- 
tion aroused  and  sympathy  with  her  before  the  Van 
Heigens  even  saw  Julia.  He  wondered  what  she  would 
do  alone  and  wished  he  knew  how  she  fared ;  he  thought 
over  the  explanations  possible  and  the  various  ways  out 
that  might  suggest  themselves  to  a  fertile  brain.  They 
were  not  many,  and  they  were  not  good ;  the  simple  truth 
would  probably  be  best,  and  that  would  be  so  exceedingly 
compromising  under  the  circumstances  that  the  Van 
Heigens  were  hardly  likely  to  find  it  palatable.  Indeed, 
he  began  to  see  that,  even  if  they  two  could  have  pre- 
sented themselves,  as  they  had  first  intended,  to  the 
anxious  family  before  Denah  arrived,  it  was  very  doubt- 
ful if  the  matter  could  have  been  satisfactorily  cleared  up 
to  a  suspicious  and  prudish  Dutch  mind.  The  girl  was 
only  a  companion,  a  person  of  no  importance,  easy  to  re- 
place ;  and,  no  matter  how  the  fact  might  be  explained,  it 
still  remained  that  she  had  been  out  all  night  with  an  un- 
known man ;  one,  who,  if  he  were  known,  would  show  to 
be  of  a  position  to  make  the  proceeding  more  compromis- 
ing still. 

At  this  point  Rawson-Clew  got  up  and  walked  to  the 


TO-MORROW  151 

window.  It  was  then  that  it  struck  him  that  he  had,  in 
these  his  mature  years,  committed  an  act  of  stupendous 
folly,  the  like  of  which  his  youth  had  never  known. 

But  the  girl,  what  would  become  of  the  girl  ?  In  Eng- 
land, in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  she  would 
have  been  dismissed;  in  Holland  that  one  last  hope  did 
not  exist.  She  would  be  dismissed  with  her  character 
considerably  damaged  and  her  chance  of  getting  another 
situation  entirely  gone.  What  would  she  do?  She  had 
told  him  yesterday  she  could  not  leave,  but  was  obliged 
to  stay  on  at  the  Van  Heigens';  although  she  had  failed 
in  the  first  object  of  her  coming,  and  so  had  no  motive 
for  remaining,  she  had  nowhere  else  to  go.  Perhaps  she 
had  quarrelled  with  her  relatives ;  perhaps  they  could  not 
afford  to  keep  her — they  were  poor  enough  he  knew.  She 
had  once  said  her  eldest  sister  had  lately  married  the 
nephew  of  a  bishop ;  he  remembered  that,  and  he  also  re- 
membered that,  after  his  unfortunate  visit  to  Captain 
Polkington,  he  had  heard  they  were  people  with  some 
good  connections.  But  that  did  not  mean  that  they  could 
afford  to  help  this  girl,  or  would  be  delighted  to  receive 
her  home  under  the  present  conditions.  Rather  it  in- 
dicated that  their  position  was  too  precarious  for  them  to 
be  able  to  do  it.  They  would  be  bitterly  hard  on  her — 
these  aspiring  people  of  gentle  birth  and  doubtful  shifts, 
clinging  to  society  by  the  skin  of  their  teeth,  were  the 
hardest  of  all.  The  girl  could  not  go  back  to  them ;  she 
could  not  get  anything  to  do  in  Holland,  or  elsewhere — in 
Heaven's  name  what  could  she  do  ? 

He  asked  himself  the  question  with  his  hands  in  his 
pockets  and  his  eyes  on  the  street.  But  the  answer  did 
not  seem  forthcoming. 

There  was  no  good  blinking  the  matter;  the  fact  was 
obvious ;  the  girl  was  hopelessly  and  utterly  compromised ; 


152  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

and  he,  aided  certainly  by  untoward  circumstances — for 
the  sardonic  interference  of  which,  in  such  circumstances, 
a  man  of  sense  usually  allows — he  had  done  it.  They  had 
had  their  "holiday,"  without  taking  thought  for  the  mor- 
row, in  the  way  approved  by  boys  and  dogs  and  crea- 
tures without  experience.  And  here  was  to-morrow, 
knocking  at  the  door  and  demanding  the  price — as  ex- 
perience showed  that  it  usually  did.  The  question  was, 
who  was  going  to  pay,  he  or  she  ?  She  had  taken  it  upon 
herself  as  a  matter  of  course;  it  seemed  natural  to  her 
that  the  burden  should  be  the  woman's,  but  it  did  not  seem 
so  to  him ;  among  his  people  it  was  the  man  who  was  ex- 
pected, and  who  himself  expected,  to  pay.  When  he  had 
grasped  the  situation  fully  and  saw  how  she  must  inevita- 
bly stand  he  also  saw  at  the  same  time  and  equally  plain- 
ly, that  he  must  marry  her ;  nothing  else  was  possible. 

He  walked  away  from  the  window  and  began  to  search 
for  writing  materials.  He  could  not  go  and  see  her,  it 
was  out  of  the  question  under  the  circumstances;  he 
would  have  to  write,  and,  on  the  whole,  perhaps,  it  was 
easier  that  way.  He  sat  down  to  the  table,  but  he  did  not 
at  once  begin,  for  between  him  and  the  paper  there  rose 
up  the  vision  of  a  stately  old  Norfolk  house.  It  was  his ; 
he  had  not  lived  there  for  years,  but  he  supposed  he  would 
some  day ;  all  his  people  had ;  he  remembered  his  grand- 
father there  and  his  grandmother — a  tall,  stately  woman, 
a  woman  of  parts.  He  thought  of  her,  and  his  mother,  a 
graceful,  gracious  woman — he  thought  of  her  standing 
in  the  drawing-room  between  the  long  windows,  receiving 
company.  And  then  he  thought  of  Julia. 

He  turned  away  from  the  vision  abruptly,  and  dated 
his  letter.  But  soon  he  had  lain  down  his  pen  again.  He 
was  conservative,  and  Julia  was  not  of  the  breed  of  the 
women  he  had  recalled ;  she  had  no  kinship  with  them  or 


TO-MORROW  153 

their  modern  prototypes,  one  of  whom  he  vaguely  sup- 
posed he  should  marry  some  day — when  he  went  to  live 
in  the  old  Norfolk  house.  Hers  was  not  a  stately  or  a 
gracious  or  an  all  pervading  feminine  presence;  she  de- 
manded no  court,  no  care,  no  carpet  for  her  way;  she 
could  come  and  go  unnoticed  and  unattended ;  you  could 
overlook  her — though  she  never  overlooked  you  or  any- 
thing else.  She  had  her  points  certainly,  she  was  loyal 
to  the  core — she  would  be  loyal  to  him,  he  was  sure,  in 
this  scrape,  with  a  silly  wrong-headed  loyalty,  more  like 
a  man's  to  a  woman  than  a  woman's  to  a  man.  She  was 
loyal  to  her  none  too  reputable  family — that  family  was  a 
bitter  thing  to  his  pride  of  race.  She  was  courageous, 
too,  cheerfully  enduring,  laughing  in  the  face  of  disaster, 
patient  when  action  was  impossible  and  when  it  was  pos- 
sible— he  found  himself  smiling  when  he  recalled  her — 
surely  there  was  never  one  more  gay,  more  ready,  more 
steady,  more  quietly  alert  than  she  when  there  was  a 
struggle  with  men  or  matters  in  the  wind.  She  had 
brains  of  a  sort,  there  was  no  doubt  of  that;  it  was  pos- 
sible to  imagine  one  would  not  grow  tired  of  her  un- 
diluted company  as  one  would  of  the  other  sort  of  wo- 
man. Only  of  course  a  man  did  not  have  the  undiluted 
company  of  his  wife — perhaps  if  he  were  a  small  shop- 
keeper or  an  itinerant  organ-grinder — if  night  and  day 
they  lived  together  and  worked  together  and  looked  out 
on  the  world  together — if  it  was  the  simple  life  of  which 
she  dreamed 

Rawson-Clew  picked  up  his  pen  and  began  to  write ;  it 
was  not  a  case  of  whether  he  would  or  would  not,  liked 
or  disliked;  he  had  simply  to  make  a  girl  he  had  com- 
promised the  only  restitution  in  his  power. 

In  the  meantime  Julia  had  set  out  for  the  market-place 
as  the  idlers  had  said.  But  her  business  there  did  not 


154  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

take  long  and  she  was  home  again,  as  she  intended,  be- 
fore Mevrouw  got  back  from  the  Snieders.  But  she  had 
not  been  in  much  more  than  five  minutes  before  the  old 
lady,  supported  by  Vrouw  Snieder  and  Denah,  arrived. 
Mijnheer  came  home  not  long  after,  and,  hearing  news  of 
the  return  of  the  truant,  went  to  the  house  to  join  the 
others. 

Julia  waited  to  receive  the  attack  in  the  dim  sitting- 
room.  She  knew  as  well  as  Rawson-Clew,  or  better, 
that  she  had  not  a  ghost  of  a  chance  of  clearing  herself ; 
dismissal  was  inevitable;  that  was  why  she  went  to  the 
market-place.  She  had  not  largely  assisted  her  family  in 
living  by  their  wits  without  having  those  faculties  in  ex- 
ceeding good  working  order;  she  had  already  seen  and 
seized  the  only  thing  open  to  her  when  the  end  should 
come.  But  the  fact  that  she  knew  how  it  would  end  did 
not  prevent  her  from  giving  battle;  the  knowledge  only 
made  her  change  her  tactics,  and,  as  there  was  no  use 
in  defending  her  position  (and  companion)  she  was  able 
to  concentrate  her  forces  in  harassing  the  enemy. 

In  these  circumstances  it  is  not  wonderful  that  Denah 
did  not  derive  the  satisfaction  she  expected  from  the  af- 
fair. Julia,  unrepentant  and  reckless  because  of  her 
known  fate,  unhampered  by  Rawson-Clew's  presence,  and 
flatly  declining  to  give  any  particulars  about  him,  would 
have  been  an  awkward  antagonist  for  one  cleverer  than 
the  Dutch  girl.  Poor  Denah  lost  her  temper,  and  lost 
her  head,  and  lost  control  of  her  tongue  and  her  tears. 
Julia  did  not  lose  anything,  but  again  and  again  winged 
shafts  that  went  unerringly  home.  She  was  genuinely 
sorry  to  have  upset  and  disappointed  Mevrouw,  but  for 
Denah  she  did  not  care  in  the  least,  and  the  old  lady  soon 
contrived  to  soften  some  of  the  regret,  for  she  was 
far  too  angry  and  shocked  at  the  impropriety  to  have  any 


TO-MORROW  155 

gentler  feelings  of  sorrow  or  to  believe  what  she  was  told. 
Vrouw  Snieder  acted  principally  as  chorus  of  horror ;  she 
was  shocked  and  angry  too,  on  Mevrouw's  account  and 
on  her  own  and  her  daughter's ;  she  seemed  to  think  they 
had  all  been  outraged  together. 

When  Mijnheer  came  in  they  were  all  talking  at  once 
and  Denah  was  weeping  copiously.  Julia's  part  in  the 
conversation  was  small;  she  just  shot  a  word  in  here 
and  there,  but  apparently  never  without  effect,  for  her 
utterances,  like  drops  of  water  on  hot  metal,  were  al- 
ways followed  by  fresh  bursts  of  excitement.  The  good 
man  tried  in  vain  to  make  out  what  was  the  matter  and 
what  had  happened.  At  last,  after  his  fifth  effort  else- 
where, he  turned  to  Julia,  and  she  told  him  briefly.  She 
told  the  truth,  only  suppressing  Rawson-Clew's  name  and 
all  details  concerning  him,  saying  merely  that  he  was  a 
man  she  had  met  before  she  left  England.  The  two  elder 
sisters  gradually  became  silent  to  listen;  Denah  listened 
too,  only  sniffing  occasionally. 

"You  pretended  you  did  not  know  him  the  day  we  went 
the  excursion,"  she  said  vindictively ;  "I  saw  you ;  I  knew 
you  were  not  to  be  trusted  then.  Why  did  you  pretend, 
and  how  do  you  know  him  ?  He  is  a  man  of  family ;  he 
has  the  air  of  it,  very  distinguished,  and  you  are  nothing 
at  all,  nobody " 

"Hush!"  said  Mijnheer;  "that  is  not  the  point;  it  is 
of  no  importance  who  the  man  may  be,  he  is  a  man,  that 
is  enough;  and  she  was  out  with  him — alone — a  whole 
day  and  night ;  it  is  certainly  very  bad  indeed ;  shocking, 
if  it  is  true— is  it  true  ?" 

He  looked  at  Julia,  and  she  answered,  "Yes." 

She  was  sorry,  very  sorry,  but  more  on  his  account  than 
her  own;  she  could  see  how  heinous  he  thought  it,  how 
she  had  fallen  in  his  esteem,  and  she  was  sorry  for  it.  But 


156  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

at  the  same  time  she  knew  her  conduct  really  had  been 
no  more  than  indiscreet ;  and  she  did  not  repent ;  she  re- 
gretted nothing  but  being  found  out,  and  that  not  so  much 
as  she  ought  now  that  the  joy  of  battle  was  upon  her.  As 
for  the  women,  they  suspected  far  worse  than  Mijnheer 
believed;  but  even  if  they  had  not,  if  they  had  believed 
no  more  than  the  truth,  that  would  have  been  enough  for 
condemnation;  her  offence — the  real  one — was  past  for- 
giveness ;  she  must  go.  She  received  the  sentence  meek- 
ly ;  she  knew  she  deserved  no  less  from  these  kind  if  nar- 
row-minded people.  Denah  smiled  triumphantly;  Julia 
felt  she  deserved  that  too;  moreover,  Denah's  nose  was 
so  pink  and  her  face  so  swelled  with  tears,  that  the  smile 
was  more  amusing  than  exasperating. 

"I  am  sorry,"  she  said ;  "I  am  sorry  you  should  all  have 
to  think  so  ill  of  me,  and  that  I  should  deserve  it.  You 
have  been  very  kind  to  me  while  I  have  been  here,  and 
made  my  service  easy;  I  am  ashamed  to  have  deceived 
you  and  behaved  in  such  a  way  as  you  must  condemn." 

Unfortunately  Vrouw  Snieder  snorted  here;  she  did 
not  believe  in  these  protestations  and  she  said  so,  induc- 
ing Vrouw  Van  Heigen  to  do  the  same.  Mijnheer  looked 
doubtfully  at  Julia  for  a  moment,  then  he  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  if  she  was  not  too  abandoned  a  person  to  be 
really  repentant,  it  would  be  as  well  to  take  advantage  of 
her  professed  state  of  mind  and  drive  home  some  moral 
lessons.  Accordingly  he  and  the  two  elder  ladies  drove 
them  home,  with  the  result  that  Julia's  regret  dwindled 
to  nothing. 

"Mijnheer,"  she  said  at  last,  quietly  yet  effectually 
breaking  in  upon  his  words;  "Mijnheer,  you  are  a  very 
good  man,  Mevrouw  is  a  virtuous  woman,  and  Vrouw 
Snieder  also,  all  of  you.  I  have  often  admired  your 
goodness ;  when  you  were  least  conscious  of  it  it  preached 


TO-MORROW  157 

to  me,  making  me  ashamed  of  my  wickedness.  But  now 
that  you,  in  your  goodness,  have  taken  to  preaching  to 
me  yourselves,  I  am  no  longer  ashamed,  for  it  is  clear 
that  your  goodness  dares  to  do  a  thing  that  no  man's 
wickedness  would ;  it  turns  the  foolish  and  indiscreet  into 
sinners  and  sinners  into  devils;  it  makes  the  way  of 
wrong-doing  very  easy.  You  are  so  good,"  she  went  on, 
putting  aside  an  interruption ;  "perhaps  you  do  not  know 
wickedness  when  you  see  it;  you  cannot  distinguish  be- 
tween sin  and  sin ;  you  are  like  those  who  would  hang 
a  man  for  stealing  bread  as  soon  as  for  killing  a  child. 
What !  Are  you  indignant,  Mevrouw,  at  such  a  charge  ? 
Are  you  not  turning  out,  with  no  character  and  no  chance 
— a  good  enough  imitation  of  hanging — a  girl  who  has 
been  no  more  than  foolish,  just  the  same  as  if  she  had 
committed  the  greatest  sin?" 

Vrouw  Heigen  broke  in  angrily,  and  Vrouw  Snieder 
and  Denah,  inexpressibly  shocked;  Mijnheer  was  also 
shocked,  but  he,  and  they  too,  were  vaguely  uneasy  under 
the  reproach.  Julia  was  satisfied ;  more  especially  as  her 
experience  of  them  led  her  to  expect  they  would,  though 
never  persuaded  they  had  made  a  mistake,  yet  feel  more 
uneasy  by  and  by. 

She  rose  from  her  chair.  "Yes,"  she  said,  "it  is  a 
shame  to  speak  of  such  things,  as  you  observe;  do  not 
let  us  speak  of  them  any  more.  Perhaps  Mijnheer  you 
would  like  to  pay  me,  then  I  can  go." 

Mijnheer  agreed  rather  hastily ;  then,  realising  the  sud- 
denness of  the  step,  he  paused  with  his  purse  in  his  hand. 
"But  can  you  go  now  ?"  he  asked.  "Nothing  is  arranged ; 
you  had  better  wait  a  day  or  two." 

"No,"  Julia  answered,  "I  think  not;  it  would  be  well 
to  get  the  thing  over  and  done  with;  you  would  rather 
and  so  would  I." 


158  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

No  one  contradicting  this,  Mijnheer  counted  the  money 
and  gave  it  to  Julia. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said;  "now  I  will  set  the  table  for 
coffee  drinking.  You  will  stay,  of  course,  Mevrouw," 
she  went  on,  turning  to  Vrouw  Snieder — "and  Miss 
Denah,  that  will  be  two  extra — Mijnheer  Joost  will  be  in, 
Denah ;  you  can  tell  him  about  it." 

Denah  flushed  indignantly,  and  Vrouw  Snieder  could 
only  say  "You — You " 

"Oh,  I  will  not  sit  down  with  you,  of  course,"  Julia 
answered  sweetly;  "I  will  take  my  coffee  in  the  little 
room ;  is  it  not  so,  Mevrouw  ?" 

Vrouw  Van  Heigen  nodded;  she  did  not  know  what 
else  to  do,  and  Julia  went  away,  leaving  them  as  awkward 
and  at  a  loss  for  words  as  if  they  were  the  delinquents, 
not  she.  Denah  felt  this  and  resented  it;  the  elders  felt 
it  too,  and  for  a  moment  or  two  looked  at  one  another 
ill  at  ease.  However,  in  a  little  they  recovered  and  be- 
gan to  talk  over  Julia  and  her  wrong  doings  till  they  felt 
quite  comfortable  again.  Denah  did  not  join  very  much 
in  the  discussion;  after  she  had  once  again,  by  request, 
repeated  what  she  had  seen  and  what  deduced  therefrom, 
she  was  left  rather  to  herself.  She  went  to  the  window 
and  sat  there  looking  out  for  Joost;  he  was  certain  to 
come  in  soon,  and  she  found  consolation  in  the  thought. 
Joost,  the  model  of  modesty  and  decorous  serious  pro- 
priety, would  know  the  English  girl  in  her  true  colours 
now,  and  be  justly  disgusted  and  shocked  to  think  that 
he  had  ever  ridden  beside  her  on  a  merry-go-round. 

Just  then  Julia  passed  carrying  a  tray  of  cups.  "Denah," 
she  said,  pitching  her  voice  soft  and  low  in  the  tone  the 
Dutch  girl  hated  most,  "I  will  give  you  a  piece  of  ad- 
vice ;  take  care  how  you  tell  Joost  about  my  wickedness ; 
you  want  to  be  ever  so  clever  to  abuse  another  girl  to  a 


TO-MORROW  159 

man ;  it  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  things  in  the  world — 
and  you  are  not  very  clever,  you  know,  not  even  clever 
enough  to  take  my  advice." 

Denah  was  not  clever  enough  to  take  the  advice  nor 
in  any  humour  to  do  so ;  she  stared  angrily  at  Julia,  who 
unconcernedly  put  the  cups  on  the  table  and  vanished  into 
the  kitchen. 

Joost  came  in  for  coffee  drinking,  and  the  whole  party 
with  one  accord  told  him  the  tale;  Julia  heard  them 
through  the  closed  door  as  she  sat  sipping  her  coffee  in 
the  little  room.  She  did  not  hear  him  say  anything  at 
all  except  just  at  first,  "I  won't  believe  it !"  in  a  tone  which 
roused  again,  and  with  added  strength,  the  regret  she 
had  felt  before  for  repaying  belief  and  kindness  by  such 
disillusioning.  Afterwards  he  seemed  to  say  nothing 
more;  presumably  they  had  convinced  him  with  over- 
whelming evidence.  She  wondered  how  he  looked;  she 
could  picture  his  serious  blue  eyes  uncomfortable  well; 
poor  Joost,  who  had  such  high  opinions  of  her,  who 
thought  she,  seeing  the  low,  chose  the  high  path  always 
in  the  greatness  of  her  knowledge  and  strength ;  who  had 
called  her  a  lantern,  sometimes  dimmed,  but  always  a  bea- 
con !  The  lantern  was  obscured  just  now,  very  badly  ob- 
scured. She  rose  and  went  up  to  her  room;  she  would 
clear  the  table  after  Joost  had  gone  back  to  work. 

She  did  so,  coming  down  when  he  and  Mijnheer  were 
safely  in  the  office.  When  she  had  done  she  went  to  Mev- 
rouw,  who  had  betaken  herself  to  her  room  worn  out 
by  the  morning's  excitement. 

"Would  you  prefer  that  I  went  at  once  ?"  she  inquired, 
"or  that  I  waited  till  after  dinner?  I  will  stay  till  six 
if  you  wish  it,  or  I  will  go  now  without  waiting  to  at- 
tend to  the  dinner." 

Vrouw  Van  Heigen  preferred  the  waiting ;  it  would  be 


160  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

so  very  much  better  for  the  dinner,  and  really  it  hardly 
seemed  as  if  propriety  could  suffer  much ;  accordingly  she 
said  with  what  dignity  she  could  that  the  girl  had  better 
stay  till  the  evening. 

Julia  went  down-stairs  again  and  set  to  work  prepar- 
ing the  dinner,  and  it  was  perhaps  only  natural  that  she 
took  pains  to  make  that  dinner  a  memorably  good  one. 
It  was  while  she  was  busy  in  the  kitchen  that  a  note  was 
brought  to  her. 

"Put  it  on  the  table,"  she  said  to  the  servant  girl; 
her  hands  just  then  were  too  floury  to  take  it,  but  she 
looked  at  it  as  it  lay  on  the  table  beside  her.  She  did 
not  recognise  the  writing,  though  she  saw  at  once  that 
it  was  not  that  of  a  Dutchman.  "Who  brought  it  ?"  she 
asked,  beginning  to  clean  her  hands. 

The  servant  could  not  say,  but  from  her  description 
Julia  gathered  that  it  must  have  been  a  special  messenger 
of  some  sort.  On  hearing  this,  she  did  not  trouble  to 
clean  her  hands  any  more,  but  opened  the  letter  at  once, 
making  floury  finger-prints  upon  it. 

"DEAR  Miss  POLKINGTON,  (it  ran), 

"There  is  one  subject  I  did  not  mention  to  you  yes- 
terday; you  might  perhaps  have  thought  it  too  serious 
for  holiday  consideration;  nevertheless,  it  is  a  question 
that  I  feel  I  must  ask  before  I  leave  Holland.  Will  you 
do  me  the  hnour  of  becoming  my  wife?  I  know  there 
is  rather  a  difference  in  years  between  us,  but  if  you  can 
overlook  the  discrepancy,  and  consent,  you  will  give  me 
the  utmost  satisfaction.  I  honestly  believe  it  will  make 
for  the  happiness  of  us  both;  I  have  a  feeling  that  we 
were  meant  to  continue  our  'excursion'  together. 
"Very  sincerely  yours, 

"H.  F.  RAWSON-CLEW." 


TO-MORROW  161 

So  Julia  read,  and  sat  down  suddenly  on  the  flour  bar- 
rel. She  turned  to  the  beginning  of  the  letter  and  read 
it  through  again,  and  when  she  looked  up  her  eyes  were 
shining  with  admiration.  "I  am  glad!"  she  said  aloud, 
but  in  English,  "I  am  glad  he  has  done  it !  It's  splendid, 
splendid!  I  never  thought  of  it — but  then  I  don't  be- 
lieve I  knew  what  a  real  gentleman  was  before!" 

The  maidservant  started  at  her  curiously;  she  could 
not  understand  a  word,  but  she  saw  that  the  letter  gave 
pleasure,  for  which  she  was  glad ;  she  liked  Julia,  and  was 
very  sorry  she  was  going  in  disgrace ;  she  herself  had  oc- 
casional lapses  from  rectitude  and  so  consequently  had 
a  fellow  feeling. 

"You  have  a  good  letter  ?"  she  asked. 

"Very  good,"  Julia  said ;  "but  we  must  get  on  with  the 
cooking ;  I  will  answer  it  by  and  by." 

Julia  put  it  in  her  pocket  after  another  glance,  purring 
to  herself  in  English,  "It  is  so  well  done,  too,"  she  said ; 
"never  a  word  of  to-day,  only  of  yesterday — yesterday !" 
and  she  laughed  softly. 

There  is  no  doubt  about  it,  if  Julia  had  got  to  receive 
a  death  sentence  she  would  have  liked  it  to  be  well  given ; 
it  is  quite  possible,  had  she  lived  at  the  time,  she  would 
have  been  one  of  those  who  objected  to  the  indignity  of 
riding  in  the  tumbrils  quite  as  much  as  to  the  guillotine 
at  the  end  of  the  ride. 

She  finished  the  preparations  for  dinner,  got  her  pots 
and  pans  all  nicely  simmering  and  her  oven  at  the  right 
heat ;  then,  giving  some  necessary  directions,  she  left  the 
servant  to  watch  the  cooking  and  went  up  to  her  own 
room.  There  she  at  once  proceeded  to  answer  the  let- 
ter— 


162  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"DEAR  MR.  RAWSON-CLEW,  (she  wrote), 

"I  am  as  glad  as  anything  that  you  have  done  it;  I 
never  for  a  moment  thought  of  it  myself,  though  I  ought, 
for  it  is  just  like  you;  thank  you  ever  so  much. 

"Please  don't  bother  about  me,  I  am  all  right  and  have 
arranged  capitally." 

Here  she  turned  over  his  letter  to  see  hov/  he  had  signed 
himself  and,  seeing,  signed  in  imitation — 
"Yours  very  sincerely, 

"JULIA  POLKINGTON." 

"I  wonder  what  his  name  is  ?"  she  speculated ;  "H.  F. — 
H. — Henry,  Horace — I  shouldn't  think  he  had  a  name 
people  called  him  by." 

She  read  her  own  letter  through,  and  as  she  was  folding 
it  stopped ;  it  occurrred  to  her  that  he  might  think  cour- 
tesy demanded  a  formal  refusal  of  his  proposal.  It  was, 
of  course,  quite  unnecessary;  the  refusal  went  without 
saying;  she  would  no  more  have  dreamed  of  accepting 
his  quixotic  offer  than  he  would  have  dreamed  of  avoid- 
ing the  necessity  of  making  it;  the  one  was  as  much  a 
sine  qua  non  to  her  as  the  other  was  to  him.  From  which 
it  would  appear  that  in  some  ways  at  least  their  notions 
of  honour  were  not  so  many  miles  apart. 

She  flattened  her  letter  again ;  perhaps  he  would  think 
the  definite  word  more  polite,  so  she  added  a  postscript — 

"Of  course  this  means  no.  I  am  sorrry  we  can't  go  on 
with  the  excursion,  but  we  can't,  you  know.  The  holi- 
day is  over ;  this  is  'to-morrow,'  so  good-bye." 

After  that  she  fastened  the  envelope,  and  a  while  later 
went  out  to  post  it.  As  she  went  up  the  drive  she  caught 
sight  of  Joost  some  distance  away  in  the  gardens ;  his  face 
was  not  towards  her,  and  she  congratulated  herself  that 
he  had  not  seen  her.  However,  the  congratulations  were 


TO-MORROW  163 

premature ;  when  she  came  back  from  the  post  she  found 
him  standing  just  inside  the  gate  waiting  for  her,  obvious- 
ly waiting.  At  least  it  was  obvious  to  her;  she  had 
caught  people  herself  before  now,  and  so  recognised  that 
she  was  caught  too  plainly  to  uselessly  attempt  getting 
away. 

"Do  you  want  to  hear  what  happened  yesterday?"  she 
asked,  with  an  effrontery  she  did  not  feel.  "I  expect 
Denah  has  told  you  all,  perhaps  a  little  more  than  all, 
still,  enough  of  it  was  true." 

"I  want  to  speak  to  you,"  he  said,  and  parted  the  high 
bushes  that  bordered  the  left  of  the  drive. 

Julia  reluctantly  enough,  but  feeling  that  she  owed  him 
what  explanation  was  possible,  went  through.  Behind 
the  bushes  there  was  a  small  enclosed  space  used  for  grow- 
ing choice  bulbs ;  it  was  empty  now,  the  sandy  soil  quite 
bare  and  dry;  but  it  was  very  retired,  being  surrounded 
by  an  eight  foot  hedge  with  only  one  opening  besides  the 
way  by  which  they  had  come  in  through  the  looser-grow- 
ing bushes.  Julia  made  her  way  down  to  the  opening; 
with  her  practical  eye  for  such  things,  she  recognised 
that  it  would  be  the  best  way  of  escape,  just  as  the  loose- 
growing  bushes  offered  the  likeliest  point  of  attack.  This, 
of  course,  did  not  matter  to  her,  she  being  in  the  case  of 
"he  who  is  down,"  but  it  might  matter  a  good  deal  to 
Joost  if  his  father  looked  through  the  bushes,  and  he 
would  never  know  how  to  take  care  of  himself. 

"Well  ?"  she  said,  when  she  had  taken  up  this  discreet 
position.  But  as  he  did  not  seem  ready  she  went  on,  "I 
really  don't  think  there  is  anything  to  say;  I  did  wrong 
yesterday,  not  quite  as  much  wrong  as  your  mother  and 
Denah  think,  still  wrong — what  my  own  people  would 
have  disapproved,  at  least  if  it  were  found  out ;  that's  the 
biggest  crime  on  their  list — and  what  I  knew  your  peo- 


164  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

pie  would  condemn  utterly.  I  am  afraid  I  have  no  ex- 
cuse to  offer ;  I  knew  what  I  was  doing,  and  I  did  it  with 
my  eyes  open.  I  did  not  see  any  harm  in  it  myself  but 
I  knew  other  people  would,  so  I  meant  to  say  nothing. 
I  had  deceived  your  parents  before,  and  I  meant  to  keep 
on  doing  it.  You  know  I  had  walked  with  that  man  lots 
of  times  before  yesterday;  all  the  time  your  mother 
thought  me  so  good  to  visit  your  cousin  I  really  enjoyed 
doing  it  because  I  walked  with  him." 

"Do  you  love  him  ?"  The  question  was  asked  low  and 
almost  jerkily. 

"Love  him  ?"  Julia  said  in  surprise ;  "no,  of  course  not. 
That  is  where  the  difference  comes  in,  I  believe ;  you  all 
seem  to  think  there  is  nothing  but  love  and  love-making 
and  kissing  and  cuddling.  I  have  just  liked  talking  to 
him  and  I  suppose  he  liked  talking  to  me,  as  you  might 
some  friend,  or  Denah  some  girl  she  knew.  We  never 
thought  about  love  and  all  that ;  we  couldn't,  you  know ; 
he  belongs  to  a  different  lot  from  what  I  do.  Do  you  un- 
derstand?" 

"Yes,  I  understand,"  he  answered,  and  there  was  a  vi- 
brant note  in  his  voice  which  was  new  to  her.  "I  un- 
derstand that  it  is  you  who  are  right  and  we  who  are 
wrong — you  who  know  good  and  evil  and  can  choose,  we 
who  suspect  and  think  and  hint,  believing  ill  when  there 
is  none.  Rather  than  send  you  away,  we  should  ask  your 
forgiveness !" 

"You  should  do  nothing  of  the  kind,"  Julia  said  de- 
cidedly, beginning  to  take  alarm.  "I  may  not  have  been 
wrong  in  quite  the  way  your  parents  think,  but  I  was 
wrong  all  the  same.  I  am  not  good,  believe  me;  I  am 
not  as  you  are.  Look  at  me,  I  am  bad  inwardly,  and 
really  I  am  what  you  would  condemn  and  despise." 

She  was  standing  in  the  afternoon  sunlight,  dark,  slim, 


TO-MORROW  165 

alert,  intensely  alive,  full  of  a  twisty  varied  knowledge,  a 
creature  of  another  world.  She  felt  that  he  must  know 
and  recognise  the  gulf  between  if  only  he  would  look 
fairly  at  her. 

He  did  look  fairly,  but  he  recognised  only  what  was 
in  his  own  mind. 

"You  are  to  me  a  beacon "  he  began. 

But  she,  realising  at  last  that  Denah's  jealousy  was  not 
after  all  without  foundations,  cut  him  short. 

"I  am  not  a  beacon,"  she  said,  "before  you  take  me  for 
a  guiding  light  you  had  better  hear  something  about  me. 
Do  you  know  why  I  came  here  ?  I  will  tell  you — it  was  to 
get  your  blue  daffodil !" 

He  stared  at  her  speechless,  and  she  found  it  bad  to 
see  the  surprise  and  almost  uncomprehending  pain  which 
came  into  his  face,  as  into  the  face  of  a  child  unjustly 
smitten.  But  she  went  on  resolutely:  "I  heard  of  it  in 
England,  that  it  was  worth  a  lot  of  money — and  I  wanted 
money — so  I  came  here;  I  meant  to  get  a  bulb  and  sell 
it." 

"You  meant  to?"  he  said  slowly;  "but  you  haven't — 
you  couldn't?" 

"I  could,  six  times  over  if  I  liked." 

"But  you  have  not." 

"No.  I  was  a  fool,  and  you  were —  Oh,  I  can't  explain ; 
you  would  never  understand,  and  it  does  not  matter.  The 
thing  that  matters  is  that  I  came  here  to  get  your  blue 
daffodil." 

"You  must  have  needed  money  very  greatly,"  he  said 
in  a  puzzled,  pitying  voice. 

"I  did,  I  wanted  it  desperately,  but  that  does  not  mat- 
ter either — I  came  here  to  steal;  I  go  away  because  I 
am  found  out  to  have  deceived  and  to  have  behaved  im- 
properly— I  want  you  to  understand  that." 


166  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"I  do  not  understand,"  he  answered;  "I  understand 
nothing  but  that  you  are  you,  and — and  I  love  you." 

"You  don't !"  she  cried  in  sharp  protest.  "You  do  not, 
and  you  cannot!  You  think  you  love  what  you  think  I 
am.  But  I  am  not  that;  it  is  all  quite  different;  when 
you,  know,  when  you  realise,  you  will  see  it." 

"I  realise  now,"  he  answered ;  "it  is  still  the  light,  only 
sometimes  dim." 

"Dim !"  she  repeated,  "it  has  gone  out !" 

"And  if  it  has,  what  then  ?  If  you  are  all  you  say  you 
are,  and  all  they  say  you  are,  and  many  worse  things  be- 
sides, what  then  ?  It  makes  no  difference." 

He  spoke  with  the  curious  quietness  with  which  he  al- 
ways spoke  of  what  he  was  quite  sure.  But  she  drew 
back  against  the  hedge,  clasping  her  hands  together,  her 
calmness  all  gone.  "Oh,  what  have  I  done !  What  have 
I  done !"  she  said,  overcome  with  pity  and  remorse. 

He  drew  a  step  nearer,  misinterpreting  the  emotion. 
"I  will  take  care  of  you,"  he  said.  "Will  you  not  let  me 
take  care  of  you  ?" 

She  looked  up,  and  though  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears 
he  might  have  read  his  answer  there,  in  her  recovered 
calmness,  in  the  very  gentleness  of  her  manner.  "You 
cannot,"  she  said  sadly;  "you  couldn't  possibly  do  it. 
Don't  you  see  that  it  is  impossible?  Your  parents,  the 
people " 

"That  is  of  no  importance,"  he  answered ;  "my  parents 
would  very  soon  see  you  in  your  true  light,  and  for  the 
rest — what  does  it  matter?  If  you  will  marry  me  I " 

"But  Joost,  I  can't!  Don't  you  feel  yourself  that  I 
can't  ?  We  are  not  only  of  two  nations — that  is  nothing 
— but  we  are  almost  of  two  races ;  we  are  night  and  day, 
oil  and  water,  black  and  white.  It  would  never  do;  we 
should  be  on  the  outskirts  of  each  other's  lives,  you  would 


TO-MORROW  167 

never  know  mine,  and  though  I  might  know  yours,  I 
could  never  really  enter  in." 

"That  is  nothing,"  he  said,  "if  you  love." 

"It  is  everything,"  she  answered,  "if  two  people  do  not 
talk  the  same  language,  soul  language,  I  mean." 

"They  will  learn  it  if  they  love — but  you  do  not?  Is 
it  that,  tell  me.  Ah,  yes,  you  do,  a  little,  little  bit !  Only 
a  little,  so  that  you  hardly  know  it,  but  it  is  enough — if 
you  have  the  least  to  give  that  would  do;  I  would  do 
all  the  rest ;  I  would  love  you ;  I  would  stand  between  you 
and  the  whole  world ;  in  time  it  would  come,  in  time  you 
would  care !" 

He  had  come  close  to  her  now;  in  his  eagerness  he 
pressed  against  her,  and,  earnestness  overcoming  diffi- 
dence, he  almost  ventured  to  take  her  hand  in  his.  She 
felt  herself  inwardly  shrink  from  him  with  the  repulsion 
that  young  wild  animals  feel  at  times  for  mere  contact. 
But  outwardly  she  did  not  betray  it;  pity  for  him  kept 
nature  under  control. 

"I  cannot,"  she  said  very  gently;  "I  can  never  care." 

Then  he  knew  that  he  had  his  answer,  and  there  was 
no  appeal ;  he  drew  back  a  pace,  and  because  he  never 
said  one  word  of  regret,  or  reproach,  or  pleading,  her 
heart  smote  her. 

"I  am  so  sorrry !"  she  said ;  "I  am  so  sorry.  Oh,  why 
is  everything  so  hard!  Joost,  dear  Joost,  you  must  not 
mind ;  I  am  not  half  good  enough  for  you ;  I'm  not,  in- 
deed. Please  forget  me  and — let  me  go." 

And  with  that  she  turned  and  fled  into  the  house. 

The  maidservant  in  the  kitchen  was  minding  the  pots ; 
it  still  wanted  some  while  to  dinner  time;  she  did  not 
expect  the  English  miss  would  come  yet,  probably  not 
till  it  was  necessary  to  dish  up.  The  letter,  of  course, 
would  have  occupied  her  some  time;  she  had  gone  out 


168  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

probably  to  meet  the  writer — the  maid  never  for  a  moment 
doubted  him  to  be  the  sharer  of  yesterday's  escapade. 
She  heard  Julia  come  in,  and  judged  the  meeting  to  have 
been  a  pleasant  one,  as  it  had  taken  time.  She  had  gone 
up-stairs  now,  doubtless  to  pack  her  things;  that  would 
occupy  her  till  almost  dinner  time. 

It  did,  for  she  did  not  begin  directly,  but  sat  on  her 
bed  instead,  doing  nothing  for  a  time.  But  when  she  did 
begin,  she  went  to  work  methodically,  folding  garments 
with  care  and  packing  them  neatly;  her  heart  ached  for 
Joost  and  for  the  tangle  things  were  in,  but  that  did  not 
prevent  her  attending  to  details  when  she  once  set  to 
work.  At  last  she  had  everything  done,  even  her  hat 
and  coat  ready  to  put  on  when  dinner  should  be  over. 
Then,  after  a  final  glance  round  to  see  that  she  had  left 
nothing  but  the  charred  fragments  of  Rawson-Clew's 
letter,  she  went  down-stairs  and  got  the  dinner  ready. 

She  did  not  take  her  meal  with  the  family,  but  again 
had  it  in  the  little  room.  She  brought  the  dishes  to  and 
fro  from  the  kitchen,  however,  so  she  passed  close  to 
Joost  once  or  twice  and  saw  his  grave  face  and  serious 
blue  eyes,  as  she  had  seen  them  every  day  since  her  first 
coming.  And  when  she  looked  at  him,  and  saw  him, 
his  appearance,  his  small  mannerisms,  himself  in  fact,  a 
voice  inside  her  cried  down  the  aching  pity,  saying,  "I 
could  not  do  it,  I  could  not  do  it!"  But  when  she  was 
alone  in  the  little  room  with  the  door  shut  between,  the 
pity  grew  strong  again  till  it  almost  welled  up  in  tears. 
Poor  Joost !  Poor  humble,  earnest,  unselfish  Joost !  That 
he  should  care  so,  that  he  should  have  set  his  hopes  on  her, 
his  star — a  will-o'-wisp  of  devious  ways !  That  he  should 
ache  for  this  unworthy  cause,  and  for  it  shut  his  eyes 
to  the  homely  happiness  which  might  have  been  his ! 

She  rose  quickly  and  went  up-stairs  to  get  her  hat  and 


TO-MORROW  169 

jacket.  Soon  after,  the  carriage,  which  she  had  extrava- 
gantly ordered,  came,  and  she  called  the  servant  to  help 
her  down  with  her  luggage.  They  got  it  down  the  nar- 
row staircase  between  them  and  into  the  hall;  Julia 
glanced  back  at  the  white  marble  kitchen  for  the  last  time, 
and  at  the  dim  little  sitting-room.  Vrouw  Van  Heigen 
was  there,  very  much  absorbed  in  crochet;  but  she  had 
left  the  door  ajar  so  that  she  might  know  when  Julia 
went,  and  that  must  have  occupied  a  prominent  place 
in  her  mind,  for  she  made  a  mistake  at  every  other  stitch. 

"Good-bye,  Mevrouw,"  Julia  said. 

Vrouw  Van  Heigen  grunted;  she  remembered  what 
was  due  to  herself  and  propriety. 

"And,  oh,"  Julia  looked  back  to  say  as  she  remembered 
it,  "don't  forget  that  last  lot  of  peach-brandy  we  made,  it 
was  not  properly  tied  down;  you  ought  to  look  at  the 
covers  some  time  this  week." 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  the  old  lady,  forgetting  propriety, 
"thank  you,  thank  you,  I'll  see  to  it;  it  will  never  do  to 
have  that  go ;  such  fine  peaches  too." 

Then  Julia  went  out  and  got  into  the  carriage.  Mijn- 
heer  was  in  his  office;  he  did  not  think  it  quite  right  to 
come  to  see  her  start  either ;  all  the  same  he  came  to  the 
door  to  tell  the  driver  to  be  careful  not  to  go  on  the  grass. 
Joost  came  also  and  looked  over  his  father's  shoulder, 
and  Julia,  who  had  been  amused  at  Vrouw  Van  Heigen, 
suddenly  forgot  this  little  amusement  again. 

Joost  left  his  father.  "I  will  tell  the  man,"  he  said. 
"I  will  go  after  him  too  and  shut  the  gate ;  it  grows  late 
for  it  to  be  open." 

The  carriage  had  already  started,  and  he  had  to  hurry 
after  it ;  even  then  he  did  not  catch  it  up  till  it  was  past  the 
bend  of  the  drive.  Then  the  man  saw  him  and  pulled  up, 
though  it  is  doubtful  if  he  got  any  order  or,  indeed,  any 


170  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

word.  Julia  had  been  looking  back,  but  from  the  other 
side;  and  because  she  had  been  looking  back  and  re- 
membering much  happiness  and  simplicity  here,  she  was 
so  grieved  for  one  at  least  who  dwelt  here  that  her  eyes 
were  full  of  tears. 

Joost  saw  them  when,  on  the  stopping  of  the  carriage, 
she  turned.  "Do  not  weep,"  he  said ;  "you  must  not  weep 
for  me." 

"I  am  so  sorry,"  she  said ;  "so  dreadfully  sorry !" 

"But  you  must  not  be,"  he  told  her ;  "there  is  no  need." 

"There  is  every  need ;  you  have  been  so  kind  to  me,  so 
good;  you  have  almost  taught  me — though  you  don't 
know  it — soom  goodness  too,  and  in  return  I  have  brought 
you  nothing  but  sadness." 

"Ah,  yes,  sadness,"  he  said ;  "but  gladness  too,  and  the 
gladness  is  more  than  the  sadness.  Would  you  not  soon- 
er know  the  fine  even  though  you  cannot  attain  to  it,  than 
be  content  with  the  little  all  your  life?  I  would,  and  it 
is  that  which  you  have  given  me.  It  is  I  who  give  noth- 
ing " 

He  hesitated  as  if  for  a  moment  at  a  loss,  and  she  had 
no  words  to  fill  in  the  pause. 

"Will  you  take  this  ?"  he  said,  half  thrusting  something 
forward.  "It  is,  perhaps,  not  much  to  some,  but  I  would 
like  you  to  have  it ;  it  seems  fitting ;  I  think  I  owe  it  to 
you,  and  you  to  it." 

"Oh,  yes,  yes,"  she  murmured,  hardly  hearing  and  not 
grasping  the  last  words ;  there  was  something  choking  in 
her  throat ;  it  was  this  strange,  humble,  disinterested  love, 
so  new  to  her,  which  brought  it  there  and  prevented  her 
from  understanding. 

She  stretched  out  her  hands,  and  he  put  something  into 
them;  then  he  stepped  back,  and  the  carriage  drove  on. 
It  was  not  till  the  gateway  was  passed  that  she  realised 


TO-MORROW  171 

what  it  was  she  held — a  small  bag  made  of  the  greyish- 
brown  paper  used  on  a  bulb  farm ;  inside,  a  single  bulb ; 
and  outside,  written,  according  to  the  invariable  custom 
of  growers — 

"Narcissus  Triandrus  Azureum  Vrouw  Van  Heigen." 


CHAPTER  XI 

A  REPRIEVE 

RAWSON-CLEW  was  reading  a  letter.  It  was  breakfast 
time ;  the  letter  had  missed  the  afternoon  post  yesterday, 
which  was  what  the  writer  would  have  wished,  and  so 
was  not  delivered  at  the  hotel  till  the  morning.  It  was 
short,  from  the  beginning — "I  am  so  glad  you  have  done 
it,"  to  the  end  of  the  postscript — "this  is  to-morrow,  so 
good-bye."  There  was  not  much  to  read ;  yet  he  looked 
at  it  for  some  time.  Did  ever  man  receive  such  a  re- 
fusal to  an  offer  of  marriage  ?  It  was  almost  absurd,  and 
perhaps  hardly  flattering,  yet  somehow  characteristic  of 
the  writer;  Rawson-Clew  recognised  that  now,  though 
it  had  surprised  him  none  the  less.  What  was  to  be  done 
next  ?  See  the  girl,  he  supposed,  and  hear  what  she  pro- 
posed to  do ;  she  wrote  that  she  had  arranged  "capitally," 
but  she  did  not  say  what.  He  was  quite  certain  she  was 
not  going  to  remain  with  the  Van  Heigens;  if  by  some 
extraordinary  accident  she  had  been  able  to  bring  that 
about,  she  would  certainly  have  told  him  so  triumphantly. 
He  could  not  think  of  anything  "capital"  she  could  have 
arranged ;  he  was  persuaded,  either  that  she  only  said  it 
to  reassure  him,  or  else,  if  she  believed  it,  it  was  in  her 
ignorance  of  the  extent  of  the  damage  done  yesterday. 
He  must  go  and  see  her,  hear  what  she  had  planned,  and 
what  further  trouble  she  was  thinking  to  get  herself  into, 
and  prevent  it  in  the  only  way  possible;  and  there  was 

172 


A    REPRIEVE  173 

only  one  way,  there  was  absolutely  no  other  solution  of 
the  difficulty ;  she  must  marrry  him,  and  there  was  an  end 
of  it.  He  glanced  at  her  refusal  again,  and  liked  it  in 
spite  of  its  absurdity;  after  all,  perhaps  it  would  have 
been  better  if  he  had  been  frank  too ;  one  could  afford  to 
dispense  with  the  delicate  conventions  that  he  associated 
with  women  in  dealing  with  this  girl.  He  wished  he  had 
gone  to  her  and  spoken  freely,  as  man  to  man,  saying 
plainly  that  since  they  had  together  been  indiscreet,  they 
must  together  take  the  consequence,  and  make  the  best 
of  it — and  really  the  best  might  be  very  good. 

Soon  after  he  had  finished  breakfast  he  set  out  for  the 
Van  Heigens'  house.  But  as  yet,  though  he  had  some 
comprehension  of  Julia,  he  had  not  fully  realised  the 
promptness  of  action  which  necessity  had  taught  her. 
When  he  reached  the  Van  Heigens'  she  had  been  gone 
some  sixteen  hours. 

It  was  Vrouw  Van  Heigen  who  told  him;  she  was  in 
the  veranda  when  he  arrived,  and  so,  perforce,  saw  him 
and  answered  his  inquiries.  It  was  evident,  at  the  out- 
set, that  neither  his  appearance  nor  name  conveyed  any- 
thing to  her ;  she  had  not  seen  him  the  day  of  the  excur- 
sion, and  Denah's  description,  purposely  complicated  by  a 
cross  description  of  Julia's,  had  conveyed  nothing,  and 
his  name  had  never  transpired.  He  saw  he  was  unknown, 
and  recognised  Julia's  loyal  screening  of  him,  not  with 
any  satisfaction;  evidently  it  was  part  of  her  creed  to 
stand  between  a  man  (father  or  otherwise)  and  the  con- 
sequence of  his  acts.  That  was  an  additional  reason  for 
finding  her  and  explaining  that  he,  unlike  Captain  Polk- 
ington,  was  not  used  to  anything  of  the  sort. 

"She  has  gone?"  he  said,  in  answer  to  Vrouw  Van 
Heigen's  brief  information.  The  old  lady  was  decidedly 
nervous  of  the  impressive  Englishman  who  had  come 


174  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

asking  after  her  disgraced  companion;  she  moved  her 
fat  hands  uneasily  even  before  he  asked,  "Where  has  she 
gone?  Perhaps  you  would  be  kind  enough  to  give  me 
her  address?" 

"I  cannot,"  she  was  obliged  to  say ;  "I  have  not  it.  I 
do  not  know  where  she  is." 

Rawson-Clew  stared.  "But  surely,"  he  said,  "you  are 
mistaken  ?  She  was  here  yesterday." 

"Yes,  yes ;  I  know.  But  she  is  not  here  now ;  she  went 
last  night  in  haste.  I  will  tell  you  about  it.  You  are  a 
friend?  Come  in." 

Without  waiting,  she  led  him  into  the  drawing-room, 
and  there  left  him  in  some  haste.  The  room  struck  him 
as  familiar;  he  wondered  why,  until  he  remembered  that 
it  must  have  been  Julia's  description  which  made  him 
so  well  acquainted  with  it.  It  was  all  just  as  she  de- 
scribed; the  thick,  dark-coloured  carpet,  with  the  little 
carefully-bound  strips  of  the  same  material  laid  over  it 
to  make  paths  to  the  piano,  the  stove,  and  other  fre- 
quented spots.  The  highly-polished  furniture,  uphol- 
stered in  black  and  yellow  Utrecht  velvet,  the  priceless 
Chinese  porcelain  brought  home  by  old  Dutch  merchants, 
and  handed  down  from  mother  to  daughter  for  genera- 
tions; the  antimacassars  of  crochet  work,  the  snuff-col- 
oured wall-paper,  the  wonderful  painted  tiles  framed  in 
ebony  that  hung  upon  it.  It  was  all  just  as  she  had  said ; 
the  very  light  and  smell  seemed  familiar,  she  must  some- 
how have  given  him  an  idea  of  them  too. 

Just  then  Vrouw  Van  Heigen  came  back,  and  her  hus- 
band with  her;  she  had  been  to  fetch  him,  not  feeling 
equal  to  dealing  with  the  visitor  alone.  Mijnheer,  by 
her  request,  had  put  on  his  best  coat,  but  he  still  had  his 
spectacles  pushed  upon  his  forehead,  as  they  always  were 
when  he  was  disturbed  in  the  office. 


A    REPRIEVE  175 

There  was  a  formal  greeting — one  never  dispensed  with 
that  in  Holland,  then  Mijnheer  said,  "You  are,  I  suppose, 
a  friend  of  Miss  Polkington's  father  ?" 

Rawson-Clew,  remembering  the  winter  day  at  Mar- 
bridge,  answered,  "I  am  acquainted  with  him." 

Mijnheer  nodded.  "Yes,  yes,"  he  said;  then,  "it  is 
very  sad,  and  much  to  be  regretted.  I  cannot  but  give 
to  you,  and  through  you  to  her  father,  very  bad  news  of 
Miss  Polkington.  She  is  not  what  we  thought  her ;  she 
has  disgraced " 

But  here  Rawson-Clew  interrupted,  but  in  the  quiet, 
leisurely  way  which  was  so  incomprehensible  to  the  Hol- 
landers. "My  dear  sir,"  he  said,  "please  spare  yourself 
the  trouble  of  these  details ;  I  am  the  man  with  whom  Miss 
Polkington  had  the  misfortune  to  be  lost  on  the  Dunes." 

Vrouw  Van  Heigen  gasped ;  the  gentle,  drawling  voice, 
the  manner,  the  whole  air  of  the  speaker  overwhelmed 
her,  and  shattered  all  her  previous  thoughts  of  the  af- 
fair. With  Mijnheer  it  was  different;  right  was  right, 
and  wrong  wrong  to  him,  no  matter  who  the  persons 
concerned  might  be. 

"Then,  sir,"  he  said,  growing  somewhat  red,  "I  am 
glad  indeed  that  I  cannot  tell  you  where  she  is." 

Rawson-Clew  looked  up  with  faint  admiration,  right- 
eous indignation,  or  at  all  events  the  open  expression  of 
it,  was  a  discourtesy  practically  extinct  with  the  people 
among  whom  he  usually  lived.  He  felt  respect  for  the 
old  bulb  grower  who  would  be  guilty  of  it. 

"I  am  sorry  you  should  think  so  badly  of  me,"  he  said ; 
"I  can  only  assure  you  that  it  is  without  reason.  You 
do  not  believe  me?  I  suppose  it  is  quite  useless  for  me 
to  say  that  my  sole  motive  in  seeking  Miss  Polkington  is 
a  desire  to  prevent  her  from  coming  to  any  harm  ?" 

"She  will,  I  should  think,  come  to  less  harm  without 


176  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

you  than  with  you,"  Mijnheer  retorted;  and  Rawson- 
Clew,  seeing  as  plainly  as  Julia  had  yesterday,  the  im- 
possibility of  making  the  position  clear,  did  not  attempt 
it. 

"I  hope  you  may  be  right,"  he  said,  "but  I  am  afraid 
she  will  be  in  difficulties.  She  had  little  money,  and  no 
friends  in  Holland,  and  was,  I  have  reason  to  believe,  on 
such  terms  with  her  family  that  it  would  not  suit  her 
to  return  to  England." 

"Ah,  but  she  must  have  gone  to  England !"  Vrouw  Van 
Heigen  cried.  "She  went  away  in  a  carriage  as  one  does 
when  one  goes  to  the  station  to  start  on  a  journey." 

"She  received  letters  from  her  family,"  Mijnheer  said 
sturdily,  "not  frequently,  but  occasionally ;  there  was  not, 
I  think,  any  quarrel  or  disagreement.  She  must  cer- 
tainly have  set  out  to  return  home  last  night.  If  not, 
and  if  she  had  nowhere  to  go,  why  should  she  leave  as 
she  did  yesterday?  We  did  not  say  'go!'  we  were  con- 
tent that  she  should  remain  several  days,  until  her  ar- 
rangements could  be  made." 

"She  might  not  have  cared  for  that,"  Rawson-Clew 
suggested;  "if  you  insinuated  to  her  the  sort  of  things 
you  did  to  me;  women  do  not  like  that,  as  a  rule,  you 
know." 

All  the  same,  as  he  said  this,  he  could  not  help  think- 
ing Mijnheer  right;  Julia  must  have  had  somewhere  to 
go.  Her  dignity  and  feelings  were  not  of  the  order  to 
lose  sight  of  essentials  in  details,  or  to  demand  unrea- 
sonable sacrifice  of  common  sense.  She  must  have  had 
some  destination  in  view  when  she  left  the  Van  Heigens 
yesterday,  and,  as  far  as  he  could  see,  there  was  no  des- 
tination open  to  her  but  home. 

Mijnheer  was  firmly  of  this  opinion,  although,  now 
that  a  question  about  it  had  been  suggested  to  him,  he 


A    REPRIEVE  177 

wished  he  had  made  sure  before  the  girl  left.  Of  course, 
her  plans  and  destination  were  no  business  of  his — she 
might  even  have  refused  to  give  information  about  them 
on  that  account;  he  had  dismissed  her  in  disgrace,  what 
she  did  next  was  not  his  concern.  But  in  spite  of  her 
bad  behaviour  he  had  liked  her;  and  though  his  notions 
of  propriety,  and  consequent  condemnation  of  her,  had 
undergone  no  change,  he  was  kind-heartedly  anxious  she 
should  come  to  no  harm.  Her  words  about  some  good 
people  making  the  merely  indiscreet  into  sinners  came 
back  to  him,  but  he  would  not  apply  them;  Julia  had 
gone  home,  he  was  sure  of  it,  and  a  good  thing  too ;  the 
Englishman  with  the  quiet  voice  and  the  grand  manner 
could  not  follow  her  there  to  her  detriment.  Though, 
to  be  sure,  it  was  strange  that  such  a  man  as  he  should 
want  to;  he  was  not  the  kind  of  person  Mijnheer  had 
expected  the  partner  in  the  escapade  to  be ;  truly  the  Eng- 
lish were  a  strange  people,  very  strange.  His  wife 
agreed  with  him  on  that  point ;  they  often  said  so  after- 
wards— in  fact,  whenever  they  thought  of  the  disgraced 
companion,  who  was  such  an  excellent  cook. 

As  for  Rawson-Clew,  he  returned  to  England;  there 
was  nothing  to  keep  him  longer  in  Holland.  But  as  he 
was  still  not  sure  how  Julia's  "capital  arrangement"  was 
going  to  be  worked  out,  and  was  determined  to  bear  his 
share  of  the  burden,  he  decided  to  go  to  Marbridge  on 
an  early  opportunity. 

The  opportunity  did  not  occur  quite  so  soon  as  he  ex- 
pected; several  things  intervened,  so  that  he  had  been 
home  more  than  a  week  before  he  was  able  to  fulfil  his 
intention.  Marbridge  lies  in  the  west  country,  some  con- 
siderable distance  from  London;  Rawson-Clew  did  not 
reach  it  till  the  afternoon,  at  an  hour  devoted  by  the  Polk- 
ingtons  most  exclusively  to  things  social.  It  is  to  be 


178  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

feared,  however,  that  he  did  not  consider  the  Polkingtons 
collectively  at  all ;  it  was  Julia,  and  Julia  alone,  of  whom 
he  was  thinking  when  he  knocked  at  the  door  of  No.  27 
East  Street. 

The  door  was  opened  by  a  different  sort  of  servant 
from  the  one  who  had  opened  it  to  him  the  last  time  he 
came;  rather  a  smart-looking  girl  she  was,  with  her  an- 
swers quite  ready. 

"Miss  Julia  Polkington  was  not  at  home,"  she  said, 
and,  in  answer  to  his  inquiry  when  she  was  expected,  in- 
formed him  that  she  did  not  know. 

"There  is  no  talk  of  her  coming  home,  sir,"  she  said; 
"she  is  abroad,  I  think ;  she  has  been  gone  some  time." 

"Since  when?" 

The  girl  did  not  know.  "In  the  spring,  I  think,  sir," 
she  said ;  "she  has  not  been  here  all  the  summer." 

Then,  it  seemed,  his  first  suspicion  was  correct;  Julia 
had  not  gone  home;  for  some  reason  or  another  she 
was  not  able  to  return. 

"Is  Captain  Polkington  in?"  he  asked. 

He  was  not ;  there  was  no  one  at  home  now ;  but  Mrs. 
Polkington  would  be  in  in  about  an  hour.  The  maid 
added  the  last,  feeling  sure  her  mistress  would  be  sorry 
to  let  such  a  visitor  slip. 

But  Rawson-Clew  did  not  want  to  see  Mrs.  Polking- 
ton; she,  he  was  nearly  sure,  represented  the  aspiring 
side  of  the  family,  not  the  one  to  whom  Julia  would  turn 
in  straits.  The  improved  look  of  the  house  and  the  ser- 
vant suggested  that  the  family  was  hard  at  work  aspir- 
ing just  now,  and  so  less  likely  than  ever  to  be  ready 
to  welcome  the  girl,  or  anxious  to  give  true  news  of  her 
if  they  had  any  to  give.  Captain  Polkington,  who  no 
one  could  connect  with  the  ascent  of  the  social  ladder, 
might  possibly  know  something;  at  all  events,  there  was 


A    REPRIEVE  179 

a  better  chance  of  it,  and  he  certainly  could  very  easily 
be  made  to  tell  anything  he  did  know. 

"When  do  you  expect  Captain  Polkington  home?"  he 
asked. 

"Not  for  a  month  or  more,  I  believe,  sir,"  was  the  an- 
swer ;  "he  is  in  London  just  now." 

Rawson-Clew  asked  for  his  address ;  it  occurred  to  him 
that  Julia  might  have  gone  to  her  father ;  it  really  seemed 
very  probable.  He  got  the  address  in  full,  and  went 
away,  but  without  leaving  any  name  to  puzzle  and  tanta- 
lise Mrs.  Polkington.  Of  course  she  was  puzzled  and 
tantalised  when  the  maid  told  her  of  the  visitor.  From 
past  experience,  she  expected  something  unpleasant  of 
his  coming,  even  though  the  description  sounded  favour- 
able ;  but,  as  she  heard  no  more  of  it,  she  forgot  all  about 
him  in  the  course  of  time. 

It  was  on  the  next  afternoon  that  Rawson-Clew  drove 
to  31  Berwick  Street.  There  are  several  Berwick  Streets 
in  London,  and,  though  the  address  given  was  full  enough 
for  the  postal  authorities,  the  cabman  had  some  difficulty 
in  finding  it,  and  went  wrong  before  he  went  right.  It 
was  a  dingy  street,  and  not  very  long;  it  had  an  unim- 
portant, apologetic  sort  of  air,  as  if  it  were  quite  used 
to  being  overlooked.  The  houses  were  oldish,  and  very 
narrow,  so  that  a  good  many  were  packed  into  the  short 
length;  the  pavement  was  narrow,  too,  and  so  were  the 
windows ;  they,  for  the  most  part,  were  carefully  draped 
with  curtains  of  doubtful  hue.  Some  were  further 
guarded  from  prying  eyes  by  sort  of  gridirons,  politely 
called  balconies,  though,  since  the  platform  had  been  for- 
gotten, and  only  the  protecting  railings  were  there  hard 
up  against  the  glass,  the  name  was  deceptive. 

The  hansom  came  slowly  down  the  street,  the  driver 
scanning  the  frequent  doors  for  31.  He  overlooked  it 


i8o  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

by  reason  of  the  fact  that  the  number  had  been  rubbed 
off,  but  finally  located  it  by  discovering  most  of  the  num- 
bers above  and  below.  Rawson-Clew  got  out  and  rang. 
In  course  of  time — rather  a  long  time — the  door  was 
opened  to  him  by  the  landlady — that  same  landlady  who 
had  confided  to  Mr.  Gillat  the  desirability  of  having  a 
good  standing  with  the  butcher. 

"Cap'ain  Polkington  ?"  she  said,  in  answer  to  Rawson- 
Clew's  inquiry.  "I  don't  know  whether  he's  in  or  not; 
you'd  better  go  up  and  see ;  one  of  'em's  there,  anyhow." 

She  stood  back  against  the  wall,  and  Rawson-Clew 
came  in. 

"Up-stairs,"  she  said;  "second  door  you  come  to." 

With  that  she  went  down  to  the  kitchen  regions;  she 
was  no  respecter  of  persons,  and  she  thanked  God  she 
had  plenty  of  her  own  business  to  mind,  and  never 
troubled  herself  poking  into  other  people's.  Consequent- 
ly, though  she  might  wonder  what  a  man  of  Rawson- 
Clew's  appearance  should  want  with  her  lodgers,  she 
did  not  let  it  interfere  with  her  work,  or  take  the  edge 
off  her  tongue  in  the  heated  argument  she  held  with  the 
milkman,  who  came  directly  after. 

Rawson-Clew  found  his  way  up  the  stairs;  they  were 
steep,  and  had  rather  the  appearance  of  having  been 
omitted  in  the  original  plan  of  the  house,  and  squeezed  in 
as  an  afterthought,  when  it  was  found  really  impossible 
to  do  without.  There  was  no  window  to  give  light  to 
them,  or  air  either ;  hence,  no  doubt,  the  antiquity  of  the 
flavour  of  cabbage  and  fried  bacon  with  hung  about  them. 
But  Rawson-Clew,  when  he  ascended,  found  the  second 
door  without  trouble;  there  was  not  room  to  get  lost. 
He  knocked;  he  half  expected  to  hear  Julia's  voice;  it 
seemed  to  him  probable  that  she  was  the  person  referred 
to  as  "one  of  them."  But  it  was  a  man  who  bade  him 


A    REPRIEVE  181 

enter,  and,  unless  his  memory  played  him  false,  not  Cap- 
tain Polkington. 

It  was  not  the  Captain,  it  was  Johnny  Gillat.  He  was 
reading  the  newspaper — Captain  Polkington  had  it  in 
the  morning,  he  in  the  afternoon ;  he  wore,  or  attempted 
to  (they  fell  off  rather  often),  very  old  slippers  indeed, 
and  a  coat  of  surprising  shabbiness  which  he  reserved 
for  home  use.  For  a  moment  he  stared  at  his  visitor  in 
astonishment,  and  Rawson-Clew  apologised  for  his  in- 
trusion. "I  was  looking  for  Captain  Polkington,"  he 
said.  "I  was  told  he  was  probably  here." 

"Ah!"  Mr.  Gillat  exclaimed,  his  face  lighting  into  a 
smile.  "Of  course,  of  course !  Captain  Polkington 's  out 
just  now,  but  he'll  be  in  soon.  Come  in,  won't  you ;  come 
in  and  wait  for  him. 

He  hospitably  dragged  forward  the  shabby  easy-chair. 
"Try  that,  won't  you?"  he  said.  "It's  really  comfortable 
— not  that  one,  that's  a  little  weak  in  the  legs;  it  ought 
to  be  put  away ;  it's  deceptive  to  people  who  don't  know 
it." 

He  pushed  the  offending  chair  against  the  wall,  his 
slippers  flapping  on  his  feet,  so  that  he  thought  it  less 
noticeable  to  surreptitiously  kick  them  off.  "My  name's 
Gillat,"  he  went  on.  "Captain  Polkington  is  an  old 
friend  of  mine." 

"Mr.  Gillat?"  Rawson-Clew  said.  He  remembered 
the  name,  and  something  Julia  had  said  about  the  bearer 
of  it.  It  was  he  who  had  given  her  the  big  gold  watch 
she  wore,  and  he  of  whom  she  had  seemed  fond,  in  a  half- 
protecting,  half-patient  way,  that  was  rather  inexplica- 
ble— at  least  it  was  till  he  saw  Mr.  Gillat. 

"Perhaps,"  Rawson-Clew  said,  "you  can  tell  me  what 
I  want  to  know — it  is  about  Miss  Julia  Polkington.  I 
met  her  in  Holland  during  the  summer." 


182  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

He  may  have  thought  of  giving  some  idea  of  intimacy, 
or  of  explaining  his  interest;  but,  if  so,  he  changed  his 
mind ;  anything  of  the  kind  was  perfectly  unnecessary  to 
Mr.  Gillat,  who  did  not  dream  of  questioning  his  reason. 

"Ah,  yes,"  he  said ;  "Julia  is  in  Holland ;  she  has  been 
there  a  long  time." 

"Is  she  there  still?"  Rawson-Clew  asked.  "Can  you 
give  me  her  address?" 

"Well,"  Johnny  said  regretfully,  "not  exactly.  But 
she  is  abroad  somewhere,"  the  last  with  an  increase  of 
cheerfulness,  as  if  to  indicate  that  this  was  something,  at 
all  events. 

"You  don't  know  where  she  is?"  Rawson-Clew  in- 
quired. "Does  her  father?  I  suppose  he  does — some 
one  must." 

"No,"  Johnny  said.  "No;  I'm  afraid  not.  Certainly 
her  father  does  not,  nor  her  mother — none  of  us  know ; 
but,  as  you  say,  somebody  must  know — the  people  she 
is  with,  for  instance." 

Rawson-Clew  grew  a  little  impatient.  "Do  you  mean," 
he  said,  "that  her  family  are  content  to  know  nothing  of 
her  whereabouts  ?  Have  they  taken  no  steps  to  find  her  ?" 

"Well,  you  see,"  Johnny  answered  slowly,  "there  aren't 
any  steps  to  take.  They  don't  want  to  find  her;  she  is 
quite  well  and  happy,  no  doubt,  and  she  will  come  back 
when  she  is  ready.  Mrs.  Polkington — do  you  know  Mrs. 
Polkington?  A  wonderful  woman!  She  is  very  busy 
just  now,  she  is  shining.  Miss  Cherie  is  quite  a  belle. 
They  really  have  not — have  not  accommodation  for  Julia ; 
it  is  not,  of  course,  that  they  don't  want  her — they  have 
not  exactly  room  for  her." 

"But  surety  they  want  to  know  where  she  is?"  Raw- 
son-Clew persisted. 

"No,  they  don't,"  Johnny  told  him.     They  know  she  is 


A    REPRIEVE  183 

all  right ;  she  told  them  so,  and  told  them  she  did  not  want 

to  be  found.  They  are  satisfied "  He  oroke  off, 

feeling  that  the  visitor  was  more  astonished  than  admir- 
ing of  such  a  state  of  affairs.  "Family  emotions  and  sen- 
timents, you  know,"  he  explained  in  defence  of  this  fami- 
ly, "are  not  every  one's  strong  point;  the  social,  or  the 

religious,  or "  (he  waved  his  hand  comprehendingly) 

"or  the  national  may  stand  first,  and  why  not?" 

"Are  you  satisfied  ?"  Rawson-Clew  asked  briefly. 

"I'd  sooner  be  able  to  see  her,"  Johnny  admitted.  "I'm 
fond  of  her ;  yes,  she's  been  very  kind  and  good ;  I  miss 
seeing  her.  But,  of  course,  she  has  her  way  to  make  in 
the  world." 

"But  are  you  satisfied  that  she  should  make  it  thus? 
That  she  should  leave  the  Dutch  family  she  was  with  and 
disappear,  leaving  no  address  ?" 

"Sir,"  Johnny  said  with  dignity,  "I  am  quite  satisfied, 
and  if  any  one  says  that  he  is  not,  I  would  be  pleased  to 
talk  to  him." 

But  the  dignity  left  Mr.  Gillat's  manner  as  quickly  as 
it  came ;  before  Rawson-Clew  could  say  anything,  he  was 
apologising.  "You  must  forgive  me,"  he  said;  "I  am 
very  fond  of  that  little  girl;  and  I  thought — but  I  had 
no  business  to  think;  I'm  an  old  fool,  to  think  you 
meant " 

"I  only  meant,"  Rawson-Clew  said,  speaking  with  un- 
conscious gentleness,  "that  I  was  afraid  she  might  be  in 
difficulties.  She  may  be  in  trouble  about  money,  or  some- 
thing." 

"Oh,  no,"  Johnny  said  cheerfully ;  "she  has  a  fine  head 
for  money  matters.  I  have  sometimes  thought,  since  she 
has  been  gone,  that  she  has  the  best  head  in  the  family! 
She's  all  right — quite  right ;  there's  no  need  to  be  uneasy 
about  her.  I'll  show  you  the  letter  she  wrote  me." 


184  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

He  opened  a  shabby  pocket-book,  and  took  out  a  letter. 
"There,  you  read  that,"  he  said. 

Rawson-Clew  read,  and  at  the  end  was  little  wiser. 
Julia  said  she  had  left  one  situation  (reason  not  even  sug- 
gested), and  had  got  another.  That  she  did  not  wish  to 
give  her  new  address,  or  to  hear  from  Mr.  Gillat,  or  her 
family,  at  this  new  place,  as  it  might  spoil  her  arrange- 
ments. Rawson-Clew  recognised  the  last  word  as  a 
favourite  of  Julia's;  with  her  it  was  elastic,  and  could 
mean  anything,  from  a  piece  of  lace  arranged  to  fill  up 
the  neck  of  a  dress,  to  a  complex  and  far-reaching  scheme 
arranged  to  bring  about  some  desired  end.  What  it  meant 
in  the  present  instance  was  not  indicated,  but  clearly  she 
did  not  wish  for  interference,  and,  with  some  wisdom, 
took  the  surest  way  to  prevent  it  by  making  it  well-nigh 
impossible.  She  had  left  one  means  of  communication, 
however,  though  apparently  that  was  for  Johnny  only. 
"If  you  and  father  get  into  any  very  great  muddle,"  she 
wrote,  "you  must  let  me  know.  Put  an  advertisement — one 
word,  'J°nnny/  will  do — in  a  paper;  I  shall  understand, 
and,  if  I  can,  I  will  try  to  do  something."  A  paper  was 
suggested ;  it  was  a  cheap  weekly.  Rawson-Clew  remem- 
bered to  have  seen  it  once  in  the  small  Dutch  town  that 
summer,  so  it  was  to  be  got  there.  Unfortunately,  as 
he  also  remembered,  it  was  to  be  got  in  Amsterdam  and 
Rotterdam,  and  Paris  and  Berlin  too. 

He  folded  the  letter,  and  returned  it  to  Mr.  Gillat. 
"Thank  you,"  he  said;  "evidently,  as  you  say,  she  does 
not  wish  to  be  found,  and  it  would  seem  she  has  got  some 
sort  of  employment,  although  I  am  afraid  it  cannot  be 
of  an  easy  or  pleasant  sort." 

He  did  not  explain  the  reason  he  had  for  thinking  so, 
and  Mr.  Gillat  never  thought  of  asking.  Soon  after  he 
went  away. 


A    REPRIEVE  185 

Clearly  there  was  nothing  to  be  done.  Julia  did  not 
mean  to  have  his  help  and  protection ;  and,  with  a  decision 
and  completeness  which,  now  he  came  to  think  of  it,  did 
not  altogether  surprise  him,  she  has  taken  care  to  avoid 
them.  That  absurd  refusal  of  hers  was,  after  all,  a  reprieve, 
although  until  now  he  had  not  looked  upon  it  in  that  light. 
No  doubt  it  was  a  good  thing  affairs  had  turned  out  as 
they  had;  the  marriage  would  have  been  in  many  ways 
disadvantageous.  Yet  he  certainly  would  have  insisted  on 
it,  and  taken  trouble  to  do  so,  if  she  had  not  put  it  alto- 
gether out  of  his  power.  All  the  same,  he  did  not  feel  as 
gratified  as  he  ought,  perhaps  because  the  arrogance  of 
man  is  not  pleased  to  have  woman  arbitrator  of  his  fate, 
and  the  instinct  of  gentleman  is  not  satisfied  to  have  her 
bear  his  burden,  perhaps  for  some  other  less  clear  reason. 
He  really  did  not  know  himself,  and  did  not  try  to  think ; 
there  seemed  little  object  in  doing  so,  seeing  that  inci- 
dent was  closed. 

The  next  day  he  went  north,  and  by  accident  travelled 
part  of  the  way  with  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance.  She  was 
young,  not  more  than  five  or  six  and  twenty,  nice  looking 
too,  and  very  well  dressed.  She  had  a  lot  of  small  imped- 
iments with  her — a  cloak,  a  dressing-bag,  sunshade,  um- 
brella, golf  clubs — some  one,  no  doubt,  would  come  and 
clear  her  when  the  destination  was  reached ;  in  the  mean 
time,  she  and  her  belongings  were  an  eminently  feminine 
presence.  She  talked  pleasantly  of  what  had  happened 
since  they  last  met;  she  had  been  to  Baireuth  that  sum- 
mer, she  told  him,  and  spoke  intelligently  of  the  music, 
the  technique  and  the  beauty  of  it,  and  what  it  stood  for. 
She  was  surprised  to  hear  he  had  got  no  further  than 
Holland,  and  more  surprised  still  that  he  had  not  even 
seen  Rembrandt's  masterpiece  while  he  was  there.  Her 
voice  was  smooth  and  even,  a  little  loud,  perhaps,  from 


186  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

her  spending  much  time  out  of  doors,  not  in  the  least 
given  to  those  subtle  changes  of  tone  which  express  what 
is  not  said ;  but  as  she  never  wanted  to  express  any  such 
things,  that  did  not  matter. 

She  did  not  bore  him  with  too  much  conversation ;  she 
had  papers  with  her — some  three  or  four,  and  she  glanced 
at  them  between  whiles.  Afterwards  she  commented  on 
their  contents — the  political  situation,  the  war  (there  is 
always  a  war  somewhere),  the  cricket  news,  the  new 
books;  touching  lightly,  but  intelligently,  on  each  topic 
in  turn. 

Rawson-Clew  listened  and  answered,  polite  and  mildly 
interested.  It  was  some  time  since  he  had  heard  this 
agreeable  kind  of  conversation,  and  since  he  had  come 
in  contact  with  this  agreeable  kind  of  person.  He  ought 
to  have  appreciated  it  more,  as  men  appreciate  the  charm 
of  drawing-rooms  who  have  long  been  banished  from 
them.  He  came  to  the  conclusion  that  he  must  be  grow- 
ing old,  not  to  prefer  the  society  of  a  pretty,  agreeable 
and  well-dressed  woman  to  an  empty  railway  carriage. 

The  girl  had  two  fine  carnations  in  her  coat ;  the  stalks 
were  rather  long,  and  so  had  got  bruised.  She  regretted 
this,  and  Rawson-Clew  offered  to  cut  them  for  her.  He 
began  to  feel  for  a  knife  in  likely  and  unlikely  pockets, 
and  it  was  then  that  he  first  noticed  a  faint,  sweet  smell ; 
dry,  not  strong  at  all,  more  a  memory  than  a  scent.  He 
did  not  recognise  what  it  was,  nor  from  where  it  came, 
but  it  reminded  him  of  something,  he  could  not  think 
what. 

He  puzzled  over  it  as  he  cut  the  flower  stalks,  then  all 
at  once  he  laid  hold  on  the  edge  of  a  recollection — a  pair 
of  dark  eyes,  in  which  mirthful,  mocking  lights  flickered, 
as  the  sun  splashes  flicker  on  the  ground  under  trees — a 
voice,  many-noted  as  a  violin,  that  grew  softest  when  it 


A    REPRIEVE  187 

was  going  to  strike  hardest,  that  expressed  a  hundred 
things  unsaid. 

He  looked  across  at  the  owner  of  the  carnations,  and 
wondered  by  what  perversity  of  fate  it  was  decreed  that 
any  one  who  could  buy  such  good  boots,  should  have  such 
ill-shaped  feet  to  put  into  them ;  and  why,  if  fate  so  handi- 
capped her,  why  she  should  exhibit  them  by  crossing  her 
knees.  He  also  wondered  what  possessed  her  to  wear 
that  hat ;  every  other  well-dressed  girl  had  a  variation  of 
the  style  that  year,  it  was  the  correctest  of  the  correct 
for  fashion,  but  he  did  not  take  note  of  that.  Men  are 
rather  blockheaded  on  the  subject  of  fashion,  and  seldom 
see  the  charm  in  the  innately  unbecoming  and  unsuitable, 
no  matter  what  decrees  it. 

He  looked  back  to  the  empty  opposite  corner,  and, 
though  until  that  moment  he  had  not  really  thought  of 
Julia  since  he  left  Mr.  Gillat  yesterday,  he  put  her  there 
in  imganiation  now.  He  did  not  want  her  there,  he  did 
not  want  her  anywhere  (there  are  some  wines  which  a 
man  does  not  want,  that  still  rather  spoil  his  taste  for 
others).  She  would  not  have  made  the  mistake  of  wear- 
ing such  a  hat ;  her  clothes  were  not  new,  they  were  dis- 
tinctly shabby  sometimes,  but  they  were  well  assorted.  As 
to  the  boots — he  remembered  the  day  he  tied  her  shoe 
— he  could  imagine  the  man  she  married,  if  he  were  very 
young  and  very  foolish,  of  course,  finding  a  certain  pleas- 
ure in  taking  her  arched  foot,  when  it  was  pink  and  bare, 
in  the  hollow  of  his  hand.  If  she  were  in  that  corner  now, 
the  quiet,  twinkling  smile  would  certainly  be  on  her  face 
as  she  listened  to  the  talk  of  books,  and  men,  and  places, 
and  things.  He  did  not  picture  her  joining  even  when 
they  spoke  of  things  she  knew,  and  places  she  had  been 
to — he  remembered  he  had  once  heard  her  speak  of  a 
town  which  had  been  spoken  of  this  afternoon.  She  had 


i88  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

somehow  grasped  the  whole  life  of  the  place,  and  laid  it 
bare  to  him  in  a  few  words — the  light-hearted  gaiety  and 
the  sordid  misery,  the  black  superstition  and  the  towering 
history  which  overhung  it,  and  the  cheerful  commonplace 
which,  like  the  street  cries  and  the  gutter  streams,  ran 
through  it  all — the  whole  flavour  of  the  thing.  The  girl 
opposite  had  been  to  the  place  too;  she  told  him  of  the 
historic  spots  she  had  visited ;  she  knew  a  deal  more  about 
them  than  Julia  did.  She  spoke  of  the  quaint  pottery  to 
be  bought  there — it  had  not  struck  Julia  as  quaint,  any 
more  than  it  did  its  buyers  and  sellers.  And  she  referred 
to  the  sayings  and  opinions  of  a  great  pose  writer,  who 
had  expressed  all  he  knew  and  felt  and  thought  about  it, 
and  more  besides.  Julia,  apparently,  had  not  read  him — 
what  reading  she  had  done  seemed  to  be  more  in  the 
direction  of  Gil  Bias,  and  Dean  Swift,  and  other  kindred 
things  in  different  languages. 

The  owner  of  the  carnations  glanced  out  of  window, 
and  commented  on  the  scenery,  which  was  here  rather  fine 
— Julia  would  not  have  done  that ;  all  the  same,  she  would 
have  known  just  what  sort  of  country  they  had  passed 
through  all  the  way,  not  only  when  it  was  fine ;  she  would 
have  noticed  the  lie  of  the  land,  the  style  of  work  done 
there,  the  kind  of  lives  lived  there,  even,  possibly,  the 
likely  difficulties  in  the  way  of  railway-making  and  bridge 
building.  She  would  certainly  have  taken  account  of  the 
faces  on  the  platforms  at  which  they  drew  up,  so  that 
without  effort  she  could  have  picked  out  the  porter  who 
would  give  the  best  service ;  the  stranger  in  need  of  help, 
and  he  who  would  offer  it ;  and  the  guard  most  likely  to 
be  useful  if  it  were  necessary  to  cheat  the  company — it 
was  conceivable  that  cheating  companies  might  some- 
times be  necessary  in  her  scheme  of  things. 

He  cut  another  piece  off  the  carnation  stalks,  they  were 


"Julia" 


A    REPRIEVE  189 

still  too  long.  He  did  not  wish  Julia  there;  he  fancied 
that  it  was  likely  she  would  not  easily  find  her  place 
among  the  people  he  would  meet  at  his  journey's  end. 
But  if  there  were  no  end — if  he  were  going  somewhere 
else,  east  or  west,  north  or  south — say  a  certain  old  orien- 
tal town,  old  and  wicked  as  time  itself,  and  full  of  the 
mystery  and  indefinable  charm  of  age,  and  iniquity,  and 
transcendent  beauty — she  would  like  that;  she  would 
grasp  the  whole,  without  attempting  to  express  or  judge 
it.  Or  a  little  far-off  Tyrolean  village,  remote  as  the 
mountains  from  the  life  of  the  world — she  would  like  that ; 
the  discomfort  would  be  nothing  to  her,  the  primitiveness, 
the  simplicity,  everything.  If  he  were  going  to  some  such 
place — why,  then,  there  were  worse  things  than  having 
to  take  the  companion  of  the  holiday  too. 

He  handed  back  the  carnations,  and  then  unthinkingly 
put  his  hand  into  his  coat-pocket.  His  fingers  came  in 
contact  with  some  dry  rubbish,  little  more  than  stalks 
and  dust,  but  still  exhaling  something  of  the  fragrance 
which  had  been  sun  distilled  on  the  Dunes.  He  recog- 
nised it  now — Julia's  flowers,  put  there  in  the  wood,  and 
forgotten  until  now. 

"Thanks  so  much  for  cutting  them,"  said  the  girl  with 
the  carnations,  smelling  them  before  she  fastened  them 
on  again.  "I  really  think  they  are  my  favourite  flower; 
the  scent  is  so  delicious — quite  the  nicest  flower  of  all, 
don't  you  think  so  ?" 

"I'm  not  sure,"  Rawson-Clew  said  thoughtfully,  and 
when  he  spoke  thoughtfully  he  drawled  very  much,  "I'm 
not  sure  I  don't  sometimes  prefer  wild  thyme." 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  YOUNG  COOK 

( 

IT  was  about  ten  o'clock  on  an  October  night;  every- 
thing was  intensely  quiet  in  the  big  kitchen  where  Julia 
stood.  It  was  not  a  cheerful  place  even  in  the  day  time, 
the  windows  looked  north,  and  were  very  high  up;  the 
walls  and  floor  were  alike  of  grey  stone,  which  gave  it  a 
prison-like  aspect,  and  also  took  much  scrubbing,  as  she 
had  reason  to  know.  It  was  far  too  large  a  place  to  be 
warmed  by  the  small  stove  now  used;  Julia  sometimes 
wondered  if  the  big  one  that  stood  empty  in  its  place 
would  have  been  sufficient  to  warm  it.  She  glanced  at  it 
now,  but  without  interest;  she  was  very  tired,  it  was 
almost  bed-time,  and  she  had  done,  as  she  had  every  day 
since  she  first  joined  Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  household,  a 
very  good  day's  work.  She  had  scarcely  been  outside  the 
four  walls  since  she  first  came  there  on  the  day  after  the 
holiday  on  the  Dunes.  This  had  been  her  own  choice, 
for,  unlike  all  the  cooks  who  had  been  before  her,  she  had 
asked  for  no  evenings  out.  Marthe,  the  short-tempered 
housekeeper,  had  not  troubled  herself  to  wonder  why, 
she  had  been  only  too  pleased  to  accept  the  arrangement 
without  comment.  Apart  from  the  self-chosen  confine- 
ment, the  life  had  been  hard  enough ;  the  work  was  hard, 
the  service  hard  and  ill-paid,  and  both  the  other  inmates 
of  the  house  cross-grained,  and  difficult  to  please.  These 
thing,  however,  Julia  did  not  mind ;  discomfort  never  mat- 

190 


THE    YOUNG    COOK  191 

tered  much  to  her  when  she  had  and  end  in  view ;  in  this 
case,  too,  the  end  should  more  than  repay  the  worst  of 
her  two  task-masters.  Which  was  agreeable,  and  almost 
made  his  unpleasantness  desirable,  as  providing  her  in- 
tended act  with  a  justification. 

She  drew  the  coffee  pot  further  on  to  the  stove,  and 
with  a  splinter  of  wood  stirred  the  fire.  She  had  the 
kitchen  to  herself,  old  Marthe  had  gone  to  bed ;  she  liked 
going  to  bed  early,  with  a  glass  of  something  hot,  and 
she  had  soon  found  that  the  young  cook  could  be  trusted 
to  finish  the  work  down-stairs.  It  was  her  opinion  that 
it  is  as  well  to  be  comfortable  when  you  can,  as  blessings 
are  fleeting  and  fickle,  especially  when  they  are  cooks; 
so  she  indulged  often  both  in  bed  and  the  glass,  notably 
the  glass.  She  had  not  been  able  to  go  to  bed  quite  as 
early  as  she  liked  that  day,  for  her  master  had  a  visitor, 
and  there  had  been  some  trouble  after  the  dinner.  It  was 
intended  to  be  an  hour  later  than  usual  to  accommodate 
the  visitor,  but  the  chemist  had  not  mentioned  the  fact — 
he  seldom  troubled  about  such  trifles,  expecting  his  house- 
hold to  divine  his  wishes  instinctively,  and  resenting  their 
failure  to  do  so  with  indignation  and  some  abuse.  He  did 
so  to-day,  and  Marthe  was  consequently  kept  up  later 
than  she  had  intended,  though  it  was  Julia  who  came  in 
for  most  of  the  reproof,  and  the  trouble  too ;  it  was  she 
who  took  away  the  dinner  and  kept  it  hot,  and  presented 
it  afresh  when  the  time  came  in  as  good  condition  as  she 
could  manage.  There  had  to  be  a  second  omelet  made; 
the  first  would  not  stand  an  hour,  and  so  was  wasted,  to 
the  indignation  of  Marthe.  The  chicken  was  a  trifle  dried 
by  waiting,  which  called  down  the  wrath  of  Herr  Van 
de  Greutz.  Julia  had  listened  to  both  of  them  with  a 
meekness  which  was  beautiful  to  see,  albeit  perhaps  a 
little  suspicious  in  one  of  her  nature. 


192  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

She  glanced  up  at  the  clock  now,  then  rose  and  fetched 
two  thick  white  coffee  cups,  and  set  them  ready  on  a  tray, 
and  sat  down  again.  She  wondered  drowsily  how  long 
Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  visitor  would  stay.  He  was  a 
German,  a  very  great  scientist ;  the  chemist  looked  upon 
him  as  a  friend  and  an  equal,  a  brother  in  arms;  they 
talked  together  freely  in  the  cryptic  language  of  science, 
and  in  German,  which  is  the  tongue  best  fitted  to  help  out 
the  other.  Julia  heard  them  when  she  went  to  and  from 
with  the  dishes  at  dinner  time.  She  did  not  understand 
chemistry,  a  fact  she  much  regretted ;  had  she  known  even 
half  as  much  as  Rawson-Clew,  the  desired  end  would 
have  been  much  sooner  within  reach.  It  is  a  very  great 
disadvantage  to  have  only  a  very  vague  idea  what  it  is 
you  want.  But  she  did  understand  German  very  well, 
consequently  part  of  the  chemists'  conversation  was  quite 
intelligible  to  her,  though  they  did  not  know  it.  Herr 
Van  de  Greutz  knew  and  cared  nothing  about  her ;  he  was 
not  even  aware  that  she  was  English,  though,  of  course, 
old  Marthe  was. 

If  the  conversation  had  touched  on  the  famous  ex- 
plosive at  dinner  time,  Julia  would  have  known  it;  she 
was  always  on  the  watch  for  some  such  occurrence.  Un- 
fortunately it  had  not,  although,  as  she  saw  plainly,  the 
German  was  the  sort  of  man  with  whom  Van  de  Greutz 
would  discuss  such  things.  She  had  still  another  chance 
of  hearing  something;  she  would  soon  have  to  take  the 
coffee  into  the  laboratory;  they  might  be  speaking  of  it 
then.  She  remembered  once  before  Van  de  Greutz  had 
spoken  of  it  to  a  scientific  guest  at  such  a  time ;  she  had 
then  heard  some  unenlightening  technical  details,  which 
might  have  been  of  some  value  to  a  chemist,  but  were  of 
no  use  at  all  to  her  ignorance.  It  was  hard  to  come  thus 
near,  and  yet  be  as  far  off  as  ever,  but  such  things  are 


THE    YOUNG    COOK  193 

likely  to  occur  when  one  is  in  pursuit  of  anything,  JuUa 
knew  that ;  she  was  prepared  to  wait,  by  and  by  she  would 
find  out  what  it  was  she  wanted,  and  then 

A  bell  rang  peremptorily ;  she  hastily  poured  the  strong 
black  coffee  into  the  two  cups,  and  put  a  bottle  of  Schie- 
dam on  the  tray.  As  she  did  so  she  noticed  that  it  was 
nearly  empty,  so  she  fetched  another  full  one,  and  added 
that  to  the  tray.  The  bell  did  not  ring  again,  although 
getting  the  second  bottle  had  hindered  her,  for  by  this 
time  the  chemists  had  forgotten  they  wanted  coffee. 
When  she  entered  the  laboratory,  Herr  Van  de  Greutz 
had  just  taken  a  bottle  from  the  lower  part  of  a  cupboard 
near  the  door.  Second  shelf  from  the  floor,  five  bottles 
from  the  left-hand  corner.  Julia  observed  the  place  with 
self-trained  accuracy  as  she  passed  Herr  Van  de  Greutz 
with  the  tray,  which  she  carried  to  the  table  far  down 
the  room. 

"This  is  it,"  Van  de  Greutz  said;  "a  small  quantity 
only,  you  see,  but  the  authorities  have  a  ridiculous  objec- 
tion to  one's  keeping  any  large  one  of  explosive.  Of 
course,  I  have  more,  in  a  stone  house  in  my  garden ;  it  is 
perhaps  safer  so,  seeing  its  nature,  and  the  fact  that  one 
is  always  liable  to  small  accidents  in  a  laboratory." 

Julia  put  down  the  tray,  but  upset  some  of  the  coffee. 
Seeing  that  excitement  had  not  usually  the  effect  of 
making  her  hand  unsteady,  it  is  possible  accident  had  not 
much  to  do  with  it.  However,  it  happened ;  she  carefully 
wiped  it  up,  and  the  two  chemists,  paying  no  more  atten- 
tion to  her  than  if  she  had  been  a  cat,  went  on  speaking 
of  the  explosive.  It  was  the  explosive ;  their  talk  told  her 
that  before  she  had  finished  the  wiping. 

"The  formula  I  would  give  for  it  ?"  Van  de  Greutz  was 
saying;  as  she  sopped  up  the  last  drops,  he  gave  the 
formula. 


194  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

.She  lifted  the  full  bottle  of  Schiedam  from  the  tray, 
and  carried  it  away  with  her — in  the  hand  farthest  from 
the  chemist's,  certainly,  but  with  as  little  concealment  as 
ostentation.  Near  the  door  she  glanced  at  the  German,  or 
rather,  at  what  he  held,  the  sample  of  the  explosive.  It 
was  a  white  powder  in  a  wide-necked,  stoppered  bottle  of 
the  size  Julia  herself  called  "quarter  pint."  The  bottle 
was  not  more  than  two-thirds  full,  and  had  no  mark  on 
it  at  all,  except  a  small  piece  of  paper  stuck  to  the  side, 
and  inscribed  with  the  single  letter  "A."  This  may  have 
been  done  in  accordance  with  some  private  system  of 
Herr  Van  de  Greutz's,  or  it  may  have  been  for  the  sake 
of  secrecy.  The  reason  did  not  matter ;  the  most  accurate 
name  would  have  been  no  more  informing  to  Julia,  but 
decidedly  more  inconvenient. 

She  went  out  and  shut  the  door  quietly ;  then  she  liter- 
ally fled  back  to  the  kitchen  with  the  Schiedam.  Scarcely 
waiting  to  set  it  down,  she  seized  a  slip  of  kitchen  paper, 
and  scribbled  on  it  the  string,  of  letters  and  figures  that 
Herr  Van  de  Greutz  had  given  as  the  formula  of  his  ex- 
plosive. She  did  not  know  what  a  formula  was,  nor  in 
what  relation  it  stood  to  the  chemical  body,  but  from 
the  talks  she  had  heard  between  the  chemist  and  his 
friends,  she  guessed  it  to  be  something  important.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  he  said  the  formula,  she  was  as  careful 
to  remember  it  accurately  as  she  was  to  remember  the 
place  of  the  bottle  on  the  shelf.  Now  she  wrote  it  down 
just  as  he  spoke  it,  and,  though  perhaps  not  exactly  as  he 
would  have  written  it,  still  comprehensible.  She  pinned 
the  piece  of  paper  in  the  cuff  of  her  dress ;  it  would  not 
be  found  there  if,  by  ill  luck,  she  was  caught  and  searched 
later  on.  Next  she  went  to  the  kitchen  cupboard;  there 
were  several  wide-necked  stoppered  bottles  there,  doubt- 
less without  the  chemist's  knowledge,  but  Marthe  found 


THE    YOUNG    COOK  195 

them  convenient  for  holding  spices,  and  ginger,  and  such 
things.  She  took  the  one  nearest  in  shape  and  size  to  the 
one  which  she  had  seen  in  the  German's  hand;  emptied 
out  the  contents,  dusted  it  and  put  in  ground  rice  till 
it  was  two-thirds  full.  Then,  with  the  lap-scissors,  she 
trimmed  a  piece  of  paper  to  the  right  size,  wrote  "A" 
upon  it,  and  stuck  it  to  the  side  of  the  bottle  with  a  dab 
of  treacle — she  had  nothing  else.  She  was  hastily  wiping 
off  the  surplus  stickiness  when  the  bell  rang  again.  She 
finished  what  she  was  doing,  and  shrouded  the  bottle  in  a 
duster,  so  that  there  was  another  summons  before  she 
could  set  out.  She  took  the  Schiedam  with  her — of 
course  it  was  that  which  was  rung  for,  but  also  the  bot- 
tle in  the  duster. 

She  did  not  hurry.  "I'll  give  him  time  to  put  the  ex- 
plosive back,"  she  thought.  It  was  just  possible  that  it 
would  be  set  on  a  bench,  perhaps  in  an  awkward  place, 
but  from  her  knowledge  of  Van  de  Greutz's  ways  she 
guessed  not.  It  was  also,  of  course,  possible  that  the 
cupboard  where  it  was  kept  would  be  locked;  in  that 
case,  nothing  could  be  done  just  now — annoying,  but  not 
desperate;  ground  rice  will  keep,  and,  apparently,  ex- 
plosives too,  so  she  reflected  as  she  opened  the  laboratory 
door.  But  the  cupboard  was  not  locked,  and  the  bottle 
was  back  in  its  place.  Another  from  the  shelf  above  had 
been  taken  out ;  the  chemists  were  discussing  that  as  they 
sat  smoking  cigars  at  the  table  far  down  the  room,  where 
the  coffee  cups  stood. 

"More  Schiedam !"  Herr  Van  de  Greutz  said,  throwing 
the  words  at  Julia  over  his  shoulder.  "Why  did  you 
bring  an  empty  bottle?" 

"I  am  sorry,  Mijnheer,"  Julia  answered;  "there  was 
not  much,  I  know ;  I  have  brought  more." 

She  pushed  the  door  to  with  her  foot  as  she  spoke,  and 


196  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

with  the  hand  not  carrying  the  spirit  set  down  the  duster 
and  the  bottle  it  held  on  a  chair.  The  German  had  put 
his  coat  over  the  chair  earlier;  it  stood  in  front  of  the 
cupboard,  a  little  way  from  it.  With  the  true  rogue's  eye 
for  cover,  Julia  noted  the  value  of  its  position,  and  even 
improved  it  by  moving  it  a  little  to  the  left  as  she  knocked 
against  it  in  passing. 

She  brought  the  Schiedam  to  the  table.  "Shall  I  take 
the  cups,  Mijnheer?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  Van  de  Greutz  answered  shortly,  resenting  the 
interruption,  "and  go  to  the  devil.  As  I  was  saying,  it  is 
very  unstable." 

This  was  to  the  German,  and  did  not  concern  Julia ;  she 
took  the  tray  of  cups  and  went.  But  near  the  door  there 
was  an  iron  tripod  lying  on  the  floor ;  she  caught  her  foot 
in  it,  stumbled  and  fell  headlong,  dropping  tray  and  cups 
with  a  great  clatter. 

There  was  a  general  exclamation  of  annoyance  and 
anger  from  Van  de  Greutz,  of  surprise  and  commiseration 
from  the  German,  and  of  something  that  might  have  been 
fright  or  pain  from  Julia. 

"You  clumsy  fool !"  Van  de  Greutz  cried.  "Get  out  of 
here,  and  don't  let  me  see  your  face,  or  hear  your  tramp- 
ling ass-hoofs  again !  Do  you  hear  me,  I  won't  have  you 
in  here  again !" 

The  German  was  more  sympathetic.  "Have  you  hurt 
yourself?"  he  asked. 

"No,  Mijnheer,  nothing,"  Julia  answered;  "only  a  lit- 
tle— my  knees  and  elbows."  Had  she  been  playing 
Othello,  though  she  might  not  have  blacked  herself  all 
over,  it  is  certain  she  would  have  carried  the  black  a  long 
way  below  high  water  mark.  This  was  no  painless  stage 
stumble,  but  one  with  real  bruises  and  a  real  thud. 

The  German  had  half  risen;  perhaps  he  thought  of 


THE    YOUNG    COOK  197 

coming  to  help  pick  up  the  pieces  of  broken  cups  that 
were  scattered  between  the  cupboard  and  the  chair.  But 
he  did  not  do  so,  for  Herr  Van  de  Greutz  went  on  to 
speak  of  his  unstable  compound. 

"I  treated  it  with "  he  said,  and,  seeing  this  was 

something  very  daring,  the  other's  attention  was  caught. 

Julia  picked  up  the  pieces  alone,  and  carried  them  out 
on  the  tray,  and  on  the  tray  also  she  carried  a  bottle  wrap- 
ped into  a  duster.  It  was  a  wide-necked  stoppered  bot- 
tle, two-thirds  full  of  white  powder;  very  much  like  the 
one  she  had  brought  in,  but  also  very  much  like  the  one 
that  stood  five  from  the  end  on  the  second  shelf  of  the 
cupboard. 

Soon  after  that  she  went  up  to  her  room,  and  took  the 
bottle  with  her.  Then,  when  she  had  set  it  in  a  place  of 
safety,  and  securely  locked  the  door,  she  broke  into  a 
silent  laugh  of  delighted  amusement.  She  pictured  to  her- 
self Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  face  when,  in  company  with 
some  other  chemist,  he  found  the  ground  rice,  while  his 
cook  with  the  "ass-hoofs"  carried  the  explosive  to  her 
native  land. 

"What  a  thief  I  should  make,"  was  her  own  opinion  of 
herself.  "I  believe  I  could  do  as  well  as  Grimm's  'Master 
Thief/  who  stole  the  parson  and  clerk."  She  took  up 
the  bottle  and  shook  a  little  of  the  contents  into  her  hand ; 
she  had  not  the  least  idea  how  it  was  set  off,  whether  a 
blow,  a  fall,  or  heat  would  reveal  its  dangerous  character- 
istics. For  a  little  she  looked  at  it  with  curiosity  and 
satisfaction.  But  gradually  the  satisfaction  faded;  the 
excitement  of  the  chase  was  over,  and  the  prize,  now  it 
was  won,  did  not  seem  a  great  thing.  She  set  the  bottle 
down  rather  distastefully,  and  turned  away. 

"He  could  not  have  got  the  stuff,"  she  told  herself  de- 
fiantly— "he"  was  Rawson-Qew — but  the  next  moment, 


198  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

with  the  justice  she  dealt  herself,  she  admitted,  "Because 
he  would  not  get  it  this  way;  he  is  not  rogue  enough; 
while  as  for  me — I  am  a  born  rogue." 

She  pushed  open  the  window  and  looked  out,  although 
it  was  quite  dark,  and  the  air  pervaded  with  a  cold,  rank 
smell  of  wet  vegetation.  She  was  thinking  of  the  other 
piece  of  roguery  which  she  had  meant  to  commit,  and  yet 
had  not.  She  had  the  bulb,  in  spite  of  that ;  it  was  safe 
among  her  clothes — hers  by  a  free  gift,  hers  absolutely, 
yet  as  unable  to  be  sold  as  the  lock  of  a  dead  mother's 
hair.  The  debt  of  honour  could  not  be  paid  by  that. 
From  her  heart  she  wished  she  had  not  got  the  daffodil ; 
she  put  it  in  the  same  category  with  Mr.  Gillat's  watch,  as 
one  of  the  things  which  made  her  ashamed  of  herself  and 
of  her  life,  even  of  this  last  act,  and  the  very  skill  that 
had  made  it  easy. 

She  took  up  the  bottle  again,  and  for  a  moment  con- 
sidered whether  she  should  give  it  back  to  Herr  Van 
de  Greutz — not  personally,  that  would  hardly  be  safe; 
but  she  could  post  it  from  England  after  she  left  his  ser- 
vice. But  she  did  not  do  so;  Rawson-Clew  stood  in  the 
way ;  it  was  for  him  she  had  taken  it,  and  her  purpose  in 
him  still  stood.  He  wanted  the  explosive,  it  would  be  to 
his  credit  and  honour  to  have  it ;  the  government  service 
to  which  he  belonged  would  think  highly  of  him  if  he  had 
it — if  he  received  it  anonymously,  so  that  he  could  not 
tell  from  whence  it  came,  and  they  could  not  divide  the 
credit  of  getting  it  between  him  and  another.  He  wanted 
it,  and  he  had  been  good  to  her.  He  had  been  kind  when 
she  was  in  trouble ;  he  had  not  believed  her  when  she 
had  called  herself  dishonest;  he  had  treated  her  as  an 
equal,  in  spite  of  the  affair  at  Marbridge,  and  he  had 
asked  her  to  marry  him  when  he  thought  she  was  com- 
promised by  the  holiday  in  the  Dunes.  For  a  moment  her 


THE    YOUNG    COOK  199 

mind  strayed  from  the  point  at  issue,  to  that  offer  of  mar- 
riage. She  remembered  the  exact  wording  of  the  letter 
as  if  she  had  but  just  received  it,  and  it  pleased  her  afresh. 
She  did  not  regret  that  she  had  refused  him;  nothing 
else  had  been  possible.  She  did  not  want  to  marry  him ; 
albeit,  when  they  had  sat  together  under  his  coat,  she 
had  not  shrunk  from  contact  with  him  as  she  had  shrunk 
from  Joost  when  he  had  tried  to  take  her  hand — that  was 
certainly  strange.  But  she  was  quite  sure  she  did  not 
want  to  marry  him ;  now  she  came  to  think  about  it,  she 
could  imagine  that,  were  she  a  girl  of  his  own  class,  with 
the  looks,  training  and  knowledge  that  belonged,  she 
might  have  found  him  precisely  the  man  she  would  have 
wanted  to  marry. 

She  went  to  a  drawer  and  took  out  an  old  handkerchief. 
She  was  not  a  girl  of  that  sort — deep  down  she  felt  inar- 
ticulately the  old  primitive  consciousness  of  inferiority 
and  superiority,  at  once  jealous  and  contemptuous; 
marrying  him  and  living  always  on  his  plane  were  alike 
impossible  to  her,  but  she  could  give  him  the  explosive. 
There  was  not  one  girl  among  all  those  others  who  could 
have  got  it  and  given  it  to  him ! 

She  tore  a  piece  from  the  handkerchief,  and  fastened 
it  over  the  stopper  of  the  bottle;  then  she  got  out  a  hat 
trimmed  with  bows  of  wide  ribbon,  and  sewed  the  bottle 
into  the  centre  bow.  It  presented  rather  a  bulgy  appear- 
ance, but  by  a  little  pulling  of  the  other  trimming  it  was 
hardly  noticeable,  and  really  nothing  is  too  peculiar  to 
be  worn  on  the  head.  After  that  she  went  to  bed. 

There  was  trouble  in  Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  kitchen  the 
next  day ;  the  young  cook,  who  had  behaved  so  admirably 
before,  did  what  old  Marthe  called  "showing  the  cloven 
hoof."  She  was  impertinent,  she  was  idle;  she  broke 


200  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

dishes,  she  wasted  eggs,  and  she  lighted  a  roaring  fire 
in  the  big  stove,  in  spite  of  the  strict  economy  of  fuel 
which  was  one  of  the  first  rules  of  the  household.  Finally 
she  announced  that  she  must  have  a  day's  holiday.  Marthe 
refused  point  blank,  whereupon  the  cook  said  she  should 
take  it,  and  a  dispute  ensued;  Marthe  called  her  several 
names,  and  reminded  her  of  the  fact  that  she  had  no 
character,  and  that  she  had  confessed  to  being  obliged  to 
leave  the  Van  Heigens  in  haste.  Julia  retorted  that  that 
fact  was  known  to  the  housekeeper  when  she  engaged  her, 
and  was  the  reason  of  the  starvation  wage  offered.  Marthe 
then  inquired  what  enormity  it  was  that  she  had  commit- 
ted at  the  Van  Heigens',  and  intimated  that  it  must  be 
disgraceful  indeed  for  a  person,  pretending  to  be  a  lady- 
help,  to  be  thankful  to  accept  the  situation  of  cook.  Julia's 
answer  was  scarcely  polite,  and  very  well  calculated  to 
rouse  the  old  woman  further,  and,  at  the  same  time,  she 
opened  the  door  and  skilfully  worked  herself  and  her 
antagonist  into  the  passage,  and  some  way  up  it,  raising 
her  voice  so  as  to  incite  the  other  to  raise  hers.  The  re- 
sult was  that  soon  the  noise  reached  Herr  Van  de  Greutz. 
Out  he  came  in  a  great  rage,  ordering  them  about 
their  business,  and  abusing  them  roundly.  Marthe  hur- 
ried back  to  the  kitchen,  effectually  silenced,  but  Julia 
remained;  she  had  not  got  her  dismissal  yet,  and  it  was 
imperative  she  should  get  it,  for  there  was  no  telling  when 
the  ground  rice  would  be  discovered.  But  she  soon  got 
what  she  wanted;  after  a  very  little  more  inciting,  Herr 
Van  de  Greutz  ordered  her  out  of  his  house  a  great  deal 
more  peremptorily  than  she  had  been  ordered  out  of  the 
Van  Heigens'.  She  was  to  go  at  once ;  she  was  to  pack 
her  things  and  go,  and  Marthe  was  to  see  that  she  took 
nothing  but  what  was  her  own;  she  was  the  most  un- 


THE    YOUNG    COOK  201 

trustworthy  and  incompetent  pig  that  the  devil  ever  sent 
to  spoil  good  food,  and  steal  silver  spoons. 

To  this  Julia  replied  by  asking  for  her  wages.  At  first 
Van  de  Greutz  refused;  but  Julia,  with  some  effrontery, 
considering  the  circumstances,  declined  to  go  without 
them,  so  eventually  he  thought  better  of  it  and  paid  her. 
After  that  she  and  Marthe  went  up-stairs,  and  she  packed 
and  Marthe  looked  on,  closely  scrutinising  everything. 
When  all  was  done,  and  she  herself  dressed,  she  walked 
out  of  the  house,  with  the  formula  fastened  inside  her 
cuff,  and  the  explosive  balanced  on  her  head.  And  the 
old  man  who  did  the  rough  work  about  the  place  came 
with  her,  wheeling  her  luggage  on  a  barrow  as  far  as 
the  gate.  Here  he  shot  it  put,  and  left  her  to  wait  till  she 
might  hail  some  passing  cart,  and  so  get  herself  conveyed 
to  the  town. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  HEIRESS 

THERE  was  a  fog  on  the  river  and  while  the  tide  was 
low  no  craft  moved ;  but  with  its  rising  there  came  a  stir 
of  life,  the  mist  that  crept  low  on  the  brown  water  be- 
came articulate  with  syren  voices  and  the  thud  of  screws 
and  the  wash  of  water  churned  by  belated  boats.  The 
steamers  called  eerily,  out  of  the  distance  a  heart-broken 
cry  like  no  other  thing  on  earth,  suddenly  near  at  hand 
a  hoot  terrific ;  but  nothing  was  to  be  seen  except  rarely 
when  out  of  the  yellow  impenetrableness  a  hull  rose  ab- 
ruptly, a  vague  dark  mass  almost  within  touching  dis- 
tance. Julia  stood  on  deck  and  listened  while  the  little 
Dutch  boat  crept  up ;  she  found  something  fascinating  in 
this  strange,  shrouded  river,  haunted,  like  a  stream  of  the 
nether  world,  with  lamentable  bodiless  voices.  The  fog 
had  delayed  them,  of  course;  the  afternoon  was  now  far 
advanced;  they  had  been  compelled  to  wait  some  long 
time  while  the  tide  was  down,  and  even  now  that  it  was 
coming  up,  they  could  go  but  slowly.  The  last  through 
train  to  Marbridge  would  have  left  Paddington  before  the 
Tower  Stairs  were  reached ;  but  Julia  did  not  mind  that ; 
she  would  go  to  Mr.  Gillat ;  she  could  get  a  room  at  the 
house  where  he  lodged  for  one  night ;  she  was  glad  at  the 
thought  of  seeing  Johnny  again.  Johnny,  who  knew  the 
worst  and  loved  and  trusted  still. 

Gradually  the  fog  lifted,  not  clearing  right  away,  but 


THE    HEIRESS  203 

enough  for  the  last  of  the  sunset  to  show  smoky,  rose  in 
a  wonderful  tawny  sky.  All  the  russet-brown  water  kin- 
dled, each  ripple  edge  catching  a  gleam  of  yellow,  except 
to  the  eastward,  where,  by  some  trick  of  light,  the  main 
stream  looked  like  a  pool  of  dull  silver,  all  pale  and  cold 
and  holy.  The  wharves  and  factories  on  the  banks  re- 
vealed themselves,  heavy  black  outlines,  pinnacled  with 
chimneys  like  some  far-off  spired  city.  All  the  craft  that 
filled  the  river  became  clear  too,  those  that  lay  still  wait- 
ing repairs  or  cargo  or  the  flood  of  the  incoming  tide, 
and  those  that  moved — the  black  Norweigian  timber  boats, 
the  dirty  tramp  steamers  from  far-off  seas,  the  smooth 
grey-hulled  liners,  the  long  strings  of  loaded  barges,  that 
followed  one  another  up  the  great  waterway  like  camels 
in  a  desert  caravan.  Julia  stood  on  deck  and  watched 
it  all,  and  to  her  there  seemed  a  certain  sombre  beauty  and 
a  something  that  moved  her,  though  she  could  not  tell 
why,  with  a  curious  baseless  pride  of  race.  And  while 
she  watched,  the  twilight  fell,  and  the  colours  turned  to 
purple  and  grey,  and  the  lights  twinkled  out  in  the  ship- 
ping and  along  the  shore — hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
lights;  and  gradually,  like  the  murmur  of  the  sea  in  a 
shell,  the  roar  of  the  city  grew  on  the  ear,  till  at  last  the 
little  boat  reached  the  Stairs,  where  the  old  grey  fortress 
looks  down  on  the  new  grey  bridge,  and  the  restless  river 
below. 

A  waterman  put  Julia  ashore,  after  courtesies  from  the 
Custom  House  officers,  and  a  porter  took  her  and  her 
belongings  to  Mark  Lane  station,  from  whence  it  was 
not  difficult  to  get  approximately  near  Berwick  Street. 

Mr.  Gillat  was  not  expecting  visitors ;  he  had  no  reason 
to  imagine  any  one  would  come  to  see  him;  he  did  not 
imagine  that  the  rings  at  the  front  bell  could  concern 
him ;  even  when  he  heard  steps  coming  up-stairs  he  only 


204  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

thought  it  was  another  lodger.  It  was  not  till  Julia 
opened  the  door  of  the  back  room  he  now  occupied  that 
he  had  the  least  idea  any  one  had  come  to  see  him. 

"Julia!"  he  exclaimed,  when  he  saw  her  standing  on 
the  threshold.  "Dear,  dear,  dear  me !" 

"Yes,"  Julia  said,  "it  really  is  I.  I'm  back  again,  you 
see;"  and  she  came  in  and  shut  the  door. 

"Bless  my  soul !"  Johnny  said ;  "bless  my  soul !  You're 
home  again!" 

"On  my  way  home ;  I  can't  get  to  Marbridge  to-night 
very  comfortably,  and  I  wanted  to  see  you,  so  here  I  am. 
I  have  arranged  with  your  landlady  to  let  me  have  a 
room." 

Mr.  Gillat  appeared  quite  overcome  with  joy  and  sur- 
prise, and  it  seemed  to  Julia,  nervousness  too.  He  led 
her  to  a  chair ;  "Won't  you  sit  down  ?"  he  said,  placing  it 
so  that  it  commanded  a  view  of  the  window  and  nothing 
else. 

Julia  sat  down ;  she  did  not  need  to  look  at  the  room ; 
she  had  already  mastered  most  of  its  details.  When  she 
first  came  in  she  had  seen  that  it  was  small  and  poor — a 
back  bedroom,  nothing  more;  an  iron  bed,  not  too  tidy, 
stood  in  one  corner,  a  washstand,  with  dirty  water  in  the 
basin,  in  another.  There  was  a  painted  chest  of  drawers 
opposite  the  window;  one  leg  was  missing,  its  place  be- 
ing supplied  by  a  pile  of  old  school-books;  the  top  was 
adorned  with  a  piece  of  newspaper  in  lieu  of  a  cover,  and 
one  of  the  drawers  stood  partly  open;  no  human  efforts 
could  get  it  shut,  so  Mr.  Gillat's  wardrobe  was  exposed 
to  the  public  gaze — if  the  public  happened  to  look  that 
way.  Julia  did  not;  nor  did  she  look  towards  the  fire- 
place, where  a  very  large  towel-horse  with  a  very  small 
towel  upon  it  acted  as  a  stove  ornament — plain  proof  that 
fires  were  unknown  there.  She  looked  across  Mr.  Gillat's 


THE    HEIRESS  205 

cheap  lamp  to  the  window  and  the  vista  of  chimney  pots, 
which  were  very  well  in  view,  for  the  blind  refused  to 
come  down  and  only  draped  the  upper  half  of  the  window 
in  a  drooping  fashion. 

Johnny  stood  against  the  chest  of  drawers,  striving 
vainly  to  push  the  refractory  drawer  shut,  although  he 
knew  by  experience  it  was  quite  impossible.  She  could 
see  him  without  turning  her  head ;  he  was  shabbier  than 
ever;  even  his  tie — his  one  extravagance  used  to  be  gay 
ties — was  shabby,  and  his  shoes  would  hardly  keep  on 
his  feet.  His  round  pink  face  was  still  round  and  pink ; 
he  did  not  look  exactly  older,  though  his  grizzled  little 
moustache  was  greyer,  only  somehow  more  puzzled  and 
hurt  by  the  ways  of  fate.  Julia  knew  that  that  was  the 
way  he  would  age;  experience  would  never  teach  him 
anything,  although,  as  she  suddenly  realised,  it  had  been 
trying  lately. 

She  turned  away  from  the  window ;  "I  have  left  my 
luggage  at  the  station,"  she  said;  "I  got  out  what  I 
wanted  in  the  waiting-room  and  brought  it  along  in  a 
parcel.  I  think  I'll  take  it  to  my  room  now,  if  you  don't 
mind,  and  wash  my  face  and  get  rid  of  my  hat — it  is  very 
heavy.  I  shan't  be  long." 

She  rose  as  she  spoke,  and  Johnny  bustled  to  open  the 
door  for  her,  too  much  a  gentleman,  in  spite  of  all,  to 
show  he  was  glad  to  have  her  go  and  give  him  a  chance 
to  clear  up.  At  the  door  she  paused. 

"You  need  not  order  supper,  Johnny,"  she  said;  "I've 
seen  about  that." 

Johnny  stopped,  his  face  a  shade  pinker.  "Oh,  but," 
he  protested,  "you  shouldn't  do  that ;  you  mustn't  do  that. 
I'll  tell  Mrs.  Horn  we  won't  have  it ;  I'll  make  it  all  right 
with  her ;  I  was  just  going  out  to  get  a — a  pork  pie  for 
myself." 


206  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

It  is  to  be  feared  this  statement  was  no  more  veracious 
than  Julia's,  and  certainly  it  was  not  nearly  so  well  made ; 
it  would  not  have  deceived  a  far  less  astute  person  than 
she,  while  hers  would  have  deceived  a  far  more  astute 
person  than  he. 

"A  pork  pie?"  Julia  said.  "You  have  no  business  to 
eat  such  things  in  the  evening  at  your  time  of  life.  I  tell 
you  I  have  settled  supper ;  we  had  much  better  have  what 
I  have  got.  I  could  not  bring  you  a  present  home  from 
Holland;  I  left  in  a  hurry,  so  I  have  bought  supper  in- 
stead. It  is  my  present  to  you — and  myself — I  have 
selected  just  what  I  thought  I  could  eat  best;  one  has 
fancies,  you  know,  after  one  has  been  seasick." 

It  would  require  an  ingeniously  bad  sailor  to  be  sea- 
sick while  a  Dutch  cargo  boat  crept  up  the  Thames  in  a 
fog,  but  Julia  never  spared  the  trimmings  when  she  did 
do  any  lying.  Johnny  was  quite  satisfied  and  let  her  go 
to  take  off  her  hat — and  the  precious  explosive  which 
she  still  carried  in  it. 

While  she  was  gone  he  tidied  the  room  to  the  best  of 
his  ability.  He  regretted  that  he  had  nowhere  better  to 
ask  her;  if  he  had  the  sitting-room  he  occupied  when 
Rawson-Clew  came  in  September,  he  would  have  felt 
quite  grand.  But  that  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  so  he 
made  the  best  of  circumstances  and  went  to  the  reckless 
extravagance  of  sixpenny  worth  of  fire.  When  Julia 
came  in,  the  towel-horse  had  been  removed  from  the 
fender,  and  a  fire  was  sputtering  awkwardly  in  the  grate, 
while  Mr.  Gillat,  proud  as  a  schoolboy  who  has  planned 
a  surprise  treat,  was  trying  to  coax  the  smoke  up  the 
damp  chimney. 

"Johnny !"  Julia  exclaimed,  "what  extravagance !  It's 
quite  a  warm  night,  too !" 

Johnny  smiled  delightedly.    "I  thought  you'd  be  cold 


THE    HEIRESS  207 

after  your  journey ;  you  look  quite  pale  and  pinched,"  he 
said;  "seasickness  does  leave  one  feeling  chilly." 

Julia  repented  of  that  unnecessary  trimming  of  hers. 
"It  is  nice  to  have  a  fire,"  she  said,  striving  not  to  cough 
at  the  choking  smoke ;  "I  don't  need  it  a  bit,  but  I  don't 
know  anything  I  should  have  enjoyed  more;  why,  I 
haven't  seen  a  real  fire  since  I  left  England !" 

She  broke  off  to  take  the  tongs  from  Mr.  Gillat,  who, 
in  his  efforts  to  improve  the  draught,  had  managed  to 
shut  the  register.  She  opened  it  again,  and  in  a  little  had 
the  fire  burning  nicely.  Johnny  looked  on  and  admired, 
and  at  her  suggestion  opened  the  window  to  let  out  the 
smoke.  After  that  she  managed  to  persuade  the  blind 
down,  and,  what  is  more,  mended  it  so  that  it  would  go 
up  again ;  then  Mr.  Gillat  cleared  the  dressing-table  and 
pulled  it  out  into  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  by  that 
time  supper  was  ready — fried  steak  and  onions  and  bot- 
tled beer,  with  jam  puffs  and  strong  black  coffee  to  fol- 
low— not  exactly  the  things  for  one  lately  suffering  from 
seasickness,  but  Julia  tried  them  all  except  the  bottled  beer 
and  seemed  none  the  worse  for  it.  And  as  for  Johnny, 
if  you  had  searched  London  over  you  could  have  found 
nothing  more  to  his  taste.  He  was  a  little  troubled  at  the 
thought  of  what  Julia  must  have  spent,  but  she  assured 
him  she  had  her  wages,  so  he  was  content.  Seldom  was 
one  happier  than  Mr.  Gillat  at  that  supper,  or  afterwards, 
when  the  table  was  cleared  and  they  drew  up  to  the  fire. 
They  sat  one  each  side  of  the  fender  on  cane-seated  chairs, 
the  coffee  on  the  hob,  and  Johnny  smoking  a  Dutch  cigar 
of  Julia's  providing.  One  can  buy  them  at  the  railway 
stations  in  Holland,  and  she  had  scarcely  more  pleasure 
in  giving  them  to  Johnny  than  she  had  in  smuggling  home 
more  than  the  permitted  quantity. 

"Now  tell  me  about  things,"  Julia  said. 


208  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Johnny's  face  fell  a  little.  During  supper  they  had 
talked  about  her  affairs  and  experiences,  none  of  the 
unpleasant  ones;  she  was  determined  not  to  have  the 
supper  spoiled  by  anything.  Now,  however,  she  felt  that 
the  time  had  come  to  hear  the  other  side  of  things. 

"I  suppose  father  has  been  to  town?"  she  remarked; 
she  knew  only  too  well  that  nothing  else  could  account  for 
Mr.  Gillat's  reduced  circumstances.  "When  did  he  go?" 

"He  has  not  been  gone  much  more  than  a  week," 
Johnny  said ;  "think  of  that  now !  If  he'd  stayed  only  a 
fortnight  more  he'd  have  been  here  to-night ;  it  is  a  pity !" 

"I  don't  think  it  is  at  all,"  Julia  said  frankly ;  "the  pity  is 
he  ever  came." 

Johnny  rubbed  his  hand  along  his  chair.  "Well,  well," 
he  said,  "your  mother  wished  it;  she  knows  what  she  is 
about;  she  is  a  wonderful  woman,  a  wonderful  woman. 
I  did  what  you  told  me,  I  really  did." 

Julia  was  sure  of  that,  but  she  was  also  sure  now  that 
he  had  not  been  a  match  for  her  mother. 

"I  went  down  to  Marbridge  a  week  before  you  father 
was  supposed  to  be  coming  to  town ;  I  warned  him  very 
likely  I  should  have  to  go  away,  just  as  you  said — and  the 
very  day  I  went  to  Marbridge  he  came  to  town,  the  very 
day — a  week  earlier  than  was  talked  of." 

Julia  could  not  repress  an  inclination  to  smile,  not  only 
at  the  neat  way  in  which  her  mother  had  checkmated  her, 
but  also  at  the  thought  of  that  lady's  face  when  Mr.  Gil- 
lat  presented  himself  at  Marbridge,  just  as  she  was  con- 
gratulating herself  on  being  rid  of  the  Captain. 

"What  happened?"  she  asked.  "Did  mother  send  you 
back  to  town  again  ?" 

"She  did  not  send  me/'  Mr.  Gillat  answered;  "but,  of 
course,  I  had  to  go,  as  she  said;  there  was  your  father 
all  alone  here ;  it  would  be  very  dull  for  him ;  I  couldn't 


THE    HEIRESS  209 

leave  him.  Besides,  he  is  not — not  a  strong  man,  it  would 
be  better — she  would  feel  more  easy  if  she  thought  he 
had  his  old  friend  with  him,  to  see  he  didn't  get  into — 
you  know." 

"I  know,"  Julia  answered;  "mother  told  you  all  this, 
then  she  paid  your  fare  back  again." 

"Not  paid  my  fare,"  Mr.  Gillat  corrected;  "a  lady 
could  not  offer  to  do  such  a  thing ;  do  you  think  I  would 
ever  have  allowed  it?  I  couldn't  you  know." 

Julia's  lips  set  straight;  she  had  something  of  a  man's 
contempt  for  small  meannesses,  and  it  is  possible  her 
judgment  on  this  economy  of  her  mother's  was  harder 
than  any  she  had  for  the  unjustifiable  extravagances  at 
which  she  guessed.  She  did  not  say  anything  cf  it  to  Mr. 
Gillat,  she  was  too  ashamed;  not  that  he  saw  it  in  that 
liget ;  he  didn't  think  he  had  been  in  any  way  badly  used, 
he  never  did. 

"Well,"  she  said,  "then  you  came  back  to  town  and 
looked  after  father  to  the  best  of  your  abilities?  I  sup- 
pose you  could  not  do  much  good?" 

Johnny  rubbed  his  hand  along  his  chair  again  for  a 
little.  "You  see,"  he  said  hesitatingly,  "it  was  very  dull 
for  him ;  of  course  he  wanted  amusement." 

"And  of  course  he  had  it,  though  he  could  not  afford 
it,  and  you  paid  ?" 

"Not  to  any  great  extent ;  oh,  dear  no,  not  to  any  great 
extent." 

"No,  because  you  had  not  got  'any  great  extent'  to 
spend ;  what  you  had,  limited  the  amount,  I  suppose,  noth- 
ing else." 

Mr.  Gillat  ignored  this.  "Your  father,"  he  said,  rather 
uneasily,  looking  at  her  and  then  away  again,  "your 
father  never  had  a  very  strong  head,  he — you  know — 
he- " 


210  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Has  taken  to  drink  ?"  Julia  asked  baldly.  "As  well  as 
gambling  he  drinks  now  ?" 

"Oh,  no,"  Johnny  said  quickly,  "not  exactly,  that  is — 
he  does  take  more  than  he  used,  more  than  is  good  for 
him  sometimes ;  not  much  is  good  for  him,  you  know — he 
does  take  more,  it  is  no  good  pretending  he  does  not.  But 
it  was  very  dull  for  him ;  it  did  not  suit  him  being  here, 
I  think;  he  used  to  get  so  low  in  spirits,  what  with  his 
losses  and  feeling  he  was  not  wanted  at  home.  He  thinks 
a  great  deal  of  your  mother,  and  he  could  not  but  feel 
that  she  does  not  think  much  of  him  to  send  him  away 
like  that;  it  hurt  him,  although,  as  he  said  to  me  more 
than  once,  no  doubt  he  deserved  it.  It  preyed  on  his 
mind ;  he  seemed  to  want  something  to  cheer  him." 

Julia  nodded;  she  could  understand  the  effect  well 
enough,  though  the  causes  at  work  might  not  be  quite 
clear.  To  her  young  judgment  it  seemed  a  little  strange 
that  her  father  should  have  never  realised  what  a  cum- 
berer  of  the  ground  he  was  to  his  wife  until  she  banished 
him  "for  his  health.  But  so  it  evidently  was,  and  after  all 
she  could  believe  it ;  like  some  others  he  had  "made  such 
a  sinner  of  his  conscience,"  that  he  could  believe,  not  only 
his  own  lie,  but  the  legends  woven  about  him.  They  had 
all  pretended  things,  he  and  they  also;  his  position,  too, 
had  come  gradually,  he  had  got  to  accept  it  without 
thinking  before  it  was  an  established  fact.  But  now  the 
truth  had  been  brought  home  to  him — more  or  less — and 
he  was  miserable,  and,  according  to  the  custom  of  his 
sort,  set  to  making  bad  worse  as  soon  as  ever  he  dis- 
covered it. 

"Why  did  he  go  home  last  week  ?"  she  aroused  herself 
to  ask. 

"He  thought  it  his  duty,"  was  Johnny's  surprising  an- 
swer. "No,  Mrs.  Polkington  did  not  send  for  him,  she 


THE    HEIRESS  211 

did  not  know  he  was  coming;  he  decided  for  himself,  he 
felt  it  would  be  better." 

Mr.  Gillat  rambled  on  vaguely,  but  Julia  was  not  slow 
to  guess  that  the  principal  reason  was  to  be  found  in  the 
state  of  Johnny's  finances.  She  questioned  him  as  to 
when  he  had  moved  into  the  back  room,  and,  finding  it  to 
be  not  long  before  her  father's  departure,  guessed  that 
discomfort,  like  the  husks  of  the  prodigal  son,  had  awak- 
ened the  thing  dignified  by  the  name  of  duty. 

For  a  little  she  sat  in  silence,  thinking  matters  over. 
Johnny  smoked  hard  at  the  stump  of  his  cigar,  mended 
the  fire  and  fidgeted,  looking  sideways  at  her. 

"Don't  worry  about  it,"  he  ventured  at  last;  things'll 
look  up,  they  will;  when  he's  back  at  Marbridge  with 
your  mother  he'll  be  all  right.  She  always  had  a  great 
influence  over  him,  she  had,  indeed." 

Julia  said  "Yes."  But  he  did  not  feel  there  was  much 
enthusiasm  in  the  monosyllable,  so  he  cast  about  in  his 
mind  for  something  to  cheer  her  and  thus  remembered  a 
very  important  matter. 

"What  an  old  fool  I  am!"  he  exclaimed.  "There's 
something  I  ought  to  have  told  you  the  moment  you  came 
in,  and  I've  clean  forgotten  it  until  now ;  it's  good  news, 
too !  There  is  a  lawyer  wants  to  see  you." 

"What  about?"  Julia  asked;  she  did  not  seem  to  natu- 
rally associate  a  lawyer  with  good  news. 

"A  legacy,"  Johnny  answered  triumphantly. 

Julia  was  much  astonished ;  she  could  not  imagine  from 
whence  it  came,  but  before  she  asked  she  made  the  busi- 
ness-like inquiry,  "How  much  ?" 

"Not  a  great  deal,  I'm  afraid,"  Mr.  Gillat  was  obliged 
to  say ;  "still,  a  little's  a  help,  you  know ;  it  may  be  a  great 
help ;  you  remember  your  father's  Aunt  Jane  ?" 

Juiia  did,  or  rather  she  remembered  the  name.  Great- 


212  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

aunt  Jane  was  one  of  the  relations  the  Polkingtons  did 
not  use;  she  was  not  rich  enough  or  obliging  enough  to 
give  any  help,  nor  grand  enough  for  conversational  pur- 
poses. She  never  figured  in  Mrs.  Polkington's  talk  ex- 
cept vaguely  as  "one  of  my  husband's  people  in  Norfolk ;" 
this  when  she  was  explaining  that  the  Captain  came  of 
East  Anglian  stock  on  his  mother's  side.  Jane  was  only 
a  step-aunt  to  the  Captain ;  his  mother  had  married  above 
her  family,  her  half-sister  Jane  had  married  a  little  be- 
neath— a  small  farmer,  in  fact,  whose  farming  had  got 
smaller  still  before  he  died,  which  was  long  ago.  Great- 
aunt  Jane  could  not  have  much  to  leave  any  one,  but,  as 
Mr.  Gillat  said,  anything  was  better  than  nothing;  the 
real  surprise  was  why  it  should  have  been  left  to  Julia. 

She  asked  Johnny  about  it,  but  he  could  not  tell  her 
much ;  he  really  knew  very  little  except  that  there  was 
something,  and  that  the  lawyer  wanted  her  address  and 
was  annoyed  when  her  relations  could  not  give  it.  In- 
deed, even  went  so  far  as  to  think  they  would  not,  and 
that  it  would  be  his  duty  to  take  steps  unless  she  was 
forthcoming  soon. 

"I  had  better  go  to  his  office  to-morrow,"  Julia  said; 
"I  suppose  you  know  where  it  is?" 

Mr.  Gillat  did,  and  they  arranged  how  they  would  go 
to-morrow,  Johnny,  who  was  to  wait  outside,  solely  for 
the  pleasure  and  excitement  of  the  expedition.  After 
that  they  talked  about  the  legacy  and  its  probable  amount 
for  some  time. 

"I  suppose  no  other  benefactor  came  inquiring  for  me 
while  I  was  away?"  Julia  said,  after  she  had,  to  please 
Johnny  and  not  her  practical  self,  built  several  air  castles 
with  the  legacy. 

"No,"  Mr.  Gillat  said  regretfully,  "I'm  afraid  not;  no 


THE    HEIRESS  213 

one  else  asked  for  you.  At  least,  some  one  did;  a  Mr. 
Rawson-Clew  came  here  for  your  address." 

"Did  he  though  ?"  Julia  asked ;  "Did  he,  indeed  ?  What 
did  he  want  it  for  ?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know,"  Johnny  was  obliged  to  say;  "I 
don't  know  that  he  gave  any  reason  exactly;  he  said  he 
had  met  you  in  Holland.  I  thought  he  was  a  friend  of 
yours,  he  seemed  to  know  a  good  deal  about  you." 

"He  was  a  friend,"  Julia  said;  "that  was  quite  right. 
And  so  he  came  for  my  address.  When  was  this?" 

Johnny  gave  the  approximate  date,  and  Julia  asked: 
"Why  did  he  come  to'  you  ?" 

Mr.  Gillat  did  not  quite  know  unless  it  was  because  he 
had  failed  elsewhere.  "But  he  really  came  to  see  your 
father,"  he  said. 

"Did  he  see  him?"  Julia  inquired. 

"No,  he  was  out.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  don't  believe 
your  father  ever  knew  he  came,"  Johnny  confessed;  "I 
meant  to  tell  him,  of  course,  but  he  was  late  home  that 
day,"  and  when  he  came  he  was — was — well,  you  know, 
he  couldn't — it  didn't  seem " 

"Yes,"  said  Julia,  coming  to  the  rescue,  "he  was  drunk 
and  could  not  understand,  and  afterwards  you  forgot  it; 
it  does  not  matter;  indeed,  it  is  better  so;  I  am  glad  of 
it." 

Mr.  Gillat  was  fumbling  in  his  shabby  letter-case;  he 
took  out  a  card ;  it  bore  Rawson-Clew's  name  and  address 
of  a  London  club. 

"He  gave  me  this,"  he  said,  "and  told  me  to  let  him 
know  if  I  heard  from  you,  if  you  were  in  any  trouble, 
or  anything — if  I  thought  you  were." 

Julia  held  out  her  hand.  "You  had  better  give  it  to 
me,"  she  said;  "I'll  let  him  know  all  that  is  necessary. 
Thank  you ;"  and  she  put  the  card  away. 


2i4  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Soon  after  she  went  to  her  room,  for  it  was  growing 
late.  But  she  did  not  hurry  over  undressing;  indeed, 
when  she  sat  down  to  take  off  her  stockings,  she  paused 
with  one  in  her  hand,  thinking  of  Rawson-Clew.  So  he 
had  tried  to  find  out  where  she  was ;  he  did  not  then  accept 
her  answer  as  final ;  he  was  bent  on  seeing  that  she  came 
to  no  harm  through  him — honourable,  certainly,  and  like 
him.  He  had  come  to  Berwick  Street  and  nearly  seen  her 
father — drunk;  quite  seen  Mr.  Gillat,  in  the  first  floor 
sitting-room  certainly,  but  no  doubt  shabby  and  not  very 
wise  as  usual.  She  was  not  ashamed ;  though  for  a  mo- 
ment she  had  been  glad  he  had  missed  her  father;  now 
she  told  herself  it  did  not  matter  either  way.  He  knew 
what  she  was  and  what  her  people  were ;  what  did  it  mat- 
ter if  he  realised  it  a  little  more?  They  were  not  of  his 
sort,  it  was  no  good  pretending  for  a  moment  that  they 
were.  His  sort!  She  laughed  silently  at  the  thought. 
The  girls  of  his  sort  eating  steak  and  onions  in  a  back 
bedroom  with  Johnny  Gillat!  Caring  for  Johnny  as  she 
cared,  liking  to  sit  with  him  in  the  pokey  little  room  while 
he  smoked  Dutch  cigars ;  not  doing  it  out  of  kindness  of 
heart  and  charity,  but  finding  personal  pleasure  in  it  and  a 
sense  of  home-coming!  If  Rawson-Clew  had  come  that 
evening  while  they  were  at  supper,  or  while  she  cured 
the  smoky  fire  or  mended  the  blind,  or  while  they  sipped 
black  coffee  out  of  earthenware  breakfast-cups  and  talked 
of  her  father's  delinquencies!  It  would  not  have  mat- 
tered; he  knew  she  was  of  the  stoke-hole — she  had  told 
him  so — and  not  like  the  accomplished  girls  whom  he 
usually  met — who  could  not  have  got  him  the  explosive ! 

She  dropped  her  stocking  to  take  the  wide-necked  bot- 
tle in  her  hands,  deciding  now  how  best  to  send  it.  It 
must  go  by  post,  in  a  good-sized  wooden  box,  tightly 
packed,  with  a  great  deal  of  damp  straw  and  wool;  it 


THE    HEIRESS  215 

ought  to  be  safe  that  way.  She  would  send  it  to  the  club 
address,  it  was  fortunate  she  had  it ;  but  not  yet,  not  until 
her  own  plans  were  clearer.  It  was  just  possible  he  might 
suspect  her;  it  was  hardly  likely,  but  it  was  always  as 
well  to  provide  against  remote  contingencies,  for  if  he 
tried  and  succeeded  in  verifying  the  suspicion  everything 
would  be  spoiled.  He  had  made  sensible  efforts  to  find 
her  before,  he  might  make  equally  sensible  and  more  suc- 
cessful ones  again,  unless  she  left  a  way  of  escape  clear 
for  herself.  Accordingly,  so  she  determined,  the  explo- 
sive should  not  go  yet,  thought  it  had  better  be  packed 
ready.  She  would  get  a  box  and  packing  to-morrow ;  to- 
night she  could  only  copy  the  formula.  She  did  this, 
printing  it  carefully  on  a  strip  of  paper  which  she  put  on 
the  bottle  and  coated  with  wax  from  her  candle.  She 
knew  Herr  Van  de  Greutz  waxed  labels  sometimes  to  pre- 
serve them  from  the  damp,  so  she  felt  sure  the  formula 
would  be  safe  however  wet  she  might  make  the  packing. 

The  next  day  she  went  to  the  lawyer's  office  and 
heard  all  about  the  legacy  and  what  she  must  do  to  prove 
her  own  identity  and  claim  it.  Mr.  Gillat  waited  out- 
side, pacing  up  and  down  the  street,  striving  so  hard  to 
look  casual  that  he  aroused  the  suspicions  of  a  not  too 
acute  policeman.  The  official  was  reassured,  however, 
when  Julia  came  out  of  the  office  and  carried  Johnny 
away  to  hear  about  the  legacy. 

"It  is  more  than  I  thought,"  she  said,  before  they  were 
half  down  the  street.  "Fifty  pounds  a  year,  a  small  house 
— not  much  more  than  a  cottage — and  a  garden  and  field ; 
that's  about  what  it  comes  to.  The  house  is  not  worth 
much;  it  is  in  an  unget-at-able  part  of  Norfolk,  in  the 
sandy  district  towards  the  sea — the  man  spoke  as  if  I 
knew  where  that  was,  but  I  don't — and  the  garden  and 


216  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

field  are  not  fertile.  I  don't  suppose  one  could  let  the 
place,  but  one  could  live  in  it,  if  one  wanted  to." 

"Yes,  yes,"  Johnny  said,  "of  course;  you  will  have 
your  own  estate  to  retire  to;  quite  an  heiress — your 
mother  will  be  pleased." 

Julia  could  well  imagine  what  skilful  use  her  mother 
could  make  of  the  legacy ;  it  would  figure  beautifully  in 
conversation ;  no  doubt  Johnny  was  really  thinking  of  this 
also,  though  he  did  not  know  it,  for  actually  the  thing 
would  not  commend  itself  to  Mrs.  Polkington  so  highly 
as  a  lump  sum  of  money  would  have  done. 

"Why  do  you  think  Great-aunt  Jane  let  it  to  me  ?"  Julia 
asked.  Because  I  went  out  to  work !  It  seems  that  father 
and  we  three  girls  are  the  nearest  relations  she  had,  and 
though  we  knew  nothing  about  her,  she  made  inquiries 
about  us  from  time  to  time.  When  she  heard  I  had  gone 
abroad  as  companion  or  lady-help,  she  said  she  should 
leave  all  she  had  to  me  because  I  was  the  only  one 
who  even  tried  to  do  any  honest  work.  You  know  that  is 
not  really  strictly  fair,  because  I  did  not  altogether  go 
with  the  idea  of  doing  honest  work ;  although,  certainly, 
when  I  got  there  I  did  it." 

Johnny  did  not  quite  follow  this  last,  but  it  did  not  mat- 
ter, the  only  thing  that  concerned  him — or  Julia  much, 
either — was  the  fact  that  she  was  the  possessor  of  £50 
a  year,  a  cottage,  a  garden,  and  a  field.  Johnny  revelled 
in  the  idea  and  talked  of  what  she  was  going  to  do  right 
up  to  the  time  that  he  saw  her  into  the  train  at  Padding- 
ton.  The  only  thing  that  put  an  end  to  his  talking  was 
the  guard  requesting  him  to  stand  away  from  the  carriage 
door  and  Julia  admonished  him  to  leave  go  of  the  handle 
before  the  engine  started.  Julia  herself  did  not  talk  so 
much  of  what  she  would  do  because  she  did  not  know ;  she 
felt,  until  she  got  home  and  saw  how  things  were  there, 


THE    HEIRESS  217 

it  was  no  good  even  to  plan  how  and  when  to  spend.  Five 
pounds  she  did  spend;  it  was  really  her  saving  accumu- 
lated by  economy  in  Holland,  but  she  reckoned  it  as 
drawn  from  her  estate.  Johnny  found  it  in  an  envelope 
when  he  returned  to  the  back  bedroom,  and  with  it  a  note 
to  say  that  it  was  in  part  payment  of  Captain  Polking- 
ton's  debts,  for  which,  of  course,  his  family  were  respons- 
ible; "and  if  you  make  a  fuss  about  it,"  the  letter  con- 
cluded, dropping  the  business-like  style,  "I  shall  trim 
'Bouquet'  to  stink  next  time  you  come  to  Marbridge,  and 
not  come  and  sit  with  you." 

I  think  Johnny  sat  down  and  wept  over  that  letter ;  but 
then  he  was  rather  a  silly  old  man  and  he  had  not  had 
a  good  meal,  except  last  night's  steak  and  onions,  for  a 
fortnight. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  END  OF  THE  CAMPAIGN 

THE  great  Polkington  campaign  was  over  and  it  had 
failed.  Mrs.  Polkington  and  Cherie  cheered  each  other 
with  assurances  of  a  contrary  nature  as  long  as  they 
could,  but  for  all  that  it  had  really  failed  and  they  knew 
it.  There  had  been  some  small  successess  by  the  way; 
they  had  received  a  little  recognition  in  superior  places, 
and  a  few,  a  very  few,  invitations  of  a  superior  order  at 
the  cost,  of  course,  of  refusing  and  so  offending  some 
old  friends  and  acquaintances.  It  might  perhaps  have 
been  possible  to  achieve  the  position  at  which  Mrs.  Polk- 
ington aimed  in  the  course  of  time,  or  a  very  long  time ; 
society  in  the  country  moves  slowly,  and  she  could  not 
afford  to  wait  indefinitely;  her  financial  ability  was  not 
equal  to  it.  Moreover,  there  came  into  her  affairs,  not 
exactly  a  crash,  but  something  so  unpleasantly  like  a  full 
stop  that  she  and  Cherie  could  not  fail  to  perceive  it. 
This  occurred  on  the  day  when  they  heard  of  Mr.  Hard- 
ing's  engagement.  Mr.  Harding  was  the  eligible  bachelor 
addition  to  county  society  whose  advent  had  materially 
assisted  in  giving  definite  form  to  Mrs.  Polkington's  am- 
bition. He  had  helped  to  feed  it,  too,  during  the 
late  summer  and  early  autumn,  for  he  had  been  friendly, 
though  Cherie  was  forced  to  admit  that  his  attentions  to 
her  had  not  been  very  marked.  But  now  the  news  was 
abroad  that  he  was  engaged  to  a  girl  in  his  own  circle ; 

218 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        219 

one  whose  mother  had  not  yet  extended  any  greater  rec- 
ognition to  Mrs.  Polkington  than  an  invitation  to  a  Prim- 
rose League  Fete. 

This  news  was  abroad  in  the  middle  of  October,  and 
there  was  a  certain  amount  of  unholy  satisfaction  in  Mar- 
bridge.  Some  of  the  old  friends  and  acquaintances  who 
Mrs.  Polkington  had  offended,  recognised  the  Christian 
duty  of  forgiveness,  and  called  upon  her — to  see  how  she 
bore  up.  The  Grayson  girls,  whose  dance  Cherie  had 
refused  at  the  beginning  of  the  month,  came  to  see  her. 
But  they  put  off  their  call  a  day  to  suit  some  theatrical 
rehearsal;  by  which  means  they  lost  the  entertainment 
they  promised  themselves,  for  by  the  time  they  did  come 
Cherie  was  ready  for  them  and,  with  appropriate  shy- 
ness, let  it  be  known  that  she  herself  was  engaged  to  Mr. 
Brendon  Smith. 

At  this  piece  of  information  the  girls  looked  at  one 
another,  and  neither  of  them  could  think  of  anything 
smart  to  say.  Afterwards  they  told  each  other  and  their 
friends  that  it  was  "quick  work,"  and  "like  those  Polking- 
tons."  But  at  the  time  they  could  only  offer  suitable 
congratulations  to  Cherie,  who  received  them  and  carried 
off  the  situation  with  a  charming  mingling  of  assurance 
and  graciousness,  which  was  worthy  of  her  mother. 

But  the  Graysons  were  right  in  saying  it  was  quick 
work ;  late  one  afternoon  Cherie  heard  of  Mr.  Harding's 
engagement;  during  the  evening  she  and  her  mother 
recognised  their  failure;  in  the  night  she  saw  that  Mr. 
Brendon  Smith  was  her  one  chance  of  dignified  with- 
drawal, and  before  the  next  evening  she  had  promised  to 
marry  him. 

There  were  some  people  in  Marbridge  who  pitied  Mr. 
Smith  (only  the  Polkingtons  put  in  the  Brendon),  but 
he  did  not  need  much  pity,  for  the  good  reason  that  he 


220  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

knew  very  well  what  he  was  doing  and  how  it  was  that 
his  proposals  came  to  be  accepted.  He  was  fond  of 
Cherie,  and  appreciated  both  her  beauty  and  her  several 
valuable  qualities;  but  he  had  no  illusions  about  her  or 
her  family,  and  he  knew,  when  he  made  it,  that  his  pro- 
posal would  be  accepted  to  cover  a  retreat.  He  was  not 
at  all  a  humble  and  diffident  individual,  but  he  did  not 
mind  being  taken  on  these  terms ;  he  even  saw  some  ad- 
vantage in  it  in  dealing  with  the  Polkingtons.  If  there 
was  any  mistake  in  the  matter  it  was  Cherie  when  she 
said  "Yes"  to  his  suggestion,  "Don't  you  think  you'd  bet- 
ter marry  me?"  She  probably  did  not  know  how  com- 
pletely she  was  getting  herself  a  master. 

It  was  not  a  grand  engagement ;  Mrs.  Polkington  could 
not  pretend  that  he  son-in-law  elect  had  aristocratic  or 
influential  connections;  she  said  so  frankly — and  her 
frankness,  which  was  overstrained,  was  one  of  her  most 
engaging  characteristics. 

"It  is  no  use  pretending  that  I  should  not  have  been 
more  pleased  if  he  had  been  better  connected,"  she  said 
to  those  old  friends  and  acquaintances  whose  Christianity 

led  them  to  call.  "I  share  your  opinion,  dear  Mrs. " 

(the  name  varied  according  to  circumstances)  "about  the 
value  of  birth ;  but  one  can't  have  everything ;  he  is  a  most 
able  man,  and  really  charming.  It  is  such  a  good  thing 
that  he  is  so  much  older  than  Cherie;  I  always  felt  she 
needed  an  older  man  to  guide  and  care  for  her — he  is 
positively  devoted  to  her;  you  know,  the  devotion  of  a 
man  of  that  age  is  such  a  different  thing  from  a  boy's  af- 
fection." 

After  that  the  visitor  could  not  reasonably  do  anything 
but  inquire  if  Mr.  Smith  was  going  to  throw  up  the  South 
African  post  which  all  the  town  knew  he  was  about  to 
take  before  his  engagement. 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN       221 

To  this  Mr.  Polkington  was  obliged  to  answer,  "No,  he 
is  going,  and  going  almost  directly ;  that  is  my  one  hard- 
ship ;  I  have  got  to  lose  Cherie  at  once,  for  he  positively 
will  not  go  without  her.  Of  course,  it  would  be  a  thou- 
sand pities  for  him  to  throw  it  up,  such  an  opening;  so 
very  much  better  than  he  would  ever  have  here,  but  it  is 
hard  to  lose  my  child — she  seems  a  child  to  me  still — 
almost  before  I  have  realised  that  she  is  grown  up.  Their 
passages  are  taken  already;  they  will  be  married  by  li- 
cense almost  directly ;  there  even  won't  be  time  to  get  a 
trousseau,  only  the  merest  necessaries  before  the  lug- 
gage has  to  go." 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  the  news  of  Mr.  Harding's 
engagement  was  the  one  and  only  thing  which  convinced 
Mrs.  Polkington  and  Cherie  that  the  great  campaign  had 
failed ;  it  was  the  finishing  touch,  no  doubt,  in  that  it  had 
made  Cherie  feel  the  necessity  of  being  immediately  en- 
gaged to  some  one,  but  there  were  other  things  at  work. 
Captain  Polkington  had  returned  from  London  just  five 
days  before  they  heard  the  news,  and  three  were  quite 
sufficient  to  show  his  wife  and  daughter  that  he  was  con- 
siderably the  worse  for  his  stay  in  town.  Bills  too,  had 
been  coming  in  of  late;  not  inoffensive,  negligible  bills 
such  as  they  were  very  well  used  to,  but  threatening  in- 
sistent bills,  one  even  accompanied  by  a  lawyer's  letter. 
Then,  to  crown  all,  Captain  Polkington  had  a  fit  of  virtue 
and  repentance  on  the  second  day  after  his  return.  It  was 
not  of  long  duration,  and  was,  no  doubt,  partly  physical, 
and  not  unconnected  with  the  effects  of  his  decline  from 
the  paths  of  temperance.  But  while  it  lasted,  he  read  some 
of  the  bills  and  talked  about  the  way  ruin  stared  him 
in  the  face  and  the  need  there  was  for  retrenchment,  turn- 
ing over  a  new  leaf,  facing  facts  and  kindred  things.  Also, 
which  was  more  important,  he  wrote  to  his  wife's  banker 


222  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

brother — he  who  had  been  instrumental  in  getting  the 
papers  sent  in  years  ago.  To  this  influential  person  he 
said  a  good  deal  about  the  state  of  the  family  finances, 
the  need  there  was  for  clearing  matters  up  and  starting  on 
a  better  basis,  and  his  own  determination  to  face  things 
fairly  and  set  to  work  in  earnest.  What  kind  of  work 
was  not  mentioned;  apparently  that  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  Captain's  resolution;  there  was  one  thing,  how- 
ever, that  was  mentioned  definitely — the  need  for  the 
banker  brother's  advice — and  pecuniary  assistance.  The 
answer  to  this  letter  was  received  on  the  same  day  as  the 
news  of  Mr.  Harding's  engagement.  It  came  in  the  even- 
ing, later  than  the  news,  and  it  was  addressed  to  Mrs. 
Polkington,  not  the  Captain;  it  assisted  her  in  recognis- 
ing that  the  end  of  the  campaign  had  arrived.  It  said 
several  unpleasant  things,  and  it  said  them  plainly;  not 
the  most  pleasant  to  the  reader  was  the  announcement  that 
the  writer  would  himself  come  to  Marbridge  to  look  into 
matters  one  day  that  week  or  the  next.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances it  is  not  perhaps  so  surprising  that  Cherie 
found  it  advisable  to  accept  Mr.  Brendon  Smith's  offer  of 
marriage,  and  Mrs.  Polkington  found  the  impossibility  of 
getting  a  trousseau  in  time  no  very  great  disadvantage. 

When  Julia  came  home  it  wanted  but  a  short  time  to 
Cherie's  wedding.  A  great  deal  seemed  to  have  hap- 
pened since  she  went  away,  not  only  to  her  family,  but, 
and  that  was  less  obviously  correct,  to  herself.  She  stood 
in  the  drawing-room  on  the  morning  after  her  return  and 
looked  round  her  and  felt  that  somehow  she  had  travelled 
a  long  way  from  her  old  point  of  view.  The  room  was 
very  untidy;  it  had  not  been  used,  and  so,  in  accordance 
with  the  Polkington  custom,  not  been  set  tidy  for  two 
days ;  dust  lay  thick  on  everything ;  there  were  dead  leaves 
in  the  vases,  cigarette  ash  on  the  table,  no  coals  on  the 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        223 

half-laid  fire.  In  the  merciless  morning  light  Julia  saw 
all  the  deficiencies ;  the  way  things  were  set  best  side  fore- 
most, though,  to  her,  the  worst  side  contrived  still  to 
show;  the  display  there  was  everywhere,  the  trumpery 
silver  ornaments,  all  tarnished  for  want  of  rubbing,  and 
of  no  more  intrinsic  value  and  beauty  than  the  tinfoil 
oft"  champagne  bottles ;  the  cracked  pieces  of  china — rum- 
mage sale  relics,  she  called  them — set  forth  in  a  glass- 
doored  cabinet,  as  if  they  were  heirlooms.  Mrs.  Polk- 
ington  had  a  romance  about  several  of  them  that  made 
them  seem  like  heirlooms  to  her  friends  and  almost  to 
herself.  The  whole,  as  Julia  looked  around,  struck  her 
as  shoddy  and  vulgar  in  its  unreality. 

"I'm  not  coming  back  to  it,  no,  I'm  not,"  she  said,  half 
aloud;  "the  corduroy  and  onions  would  be  a  great  deal 
better." 

Cherie  passed  the  open  door  at  that  minute  and  half 
heard  her.  "What  did  you  say?"  she  asked. 

Julia  looked  round.  "Nothing,"  she  answered,  "only 
that  I  am  not  coming  back  to  this  sort  of  life." 

"To  Marbridge?"  Cherie  asked,  "or  to  the  house?  If 
it  is  the  house  you  mean,  you  need  not  trouble  about  that ; 
there  isn't  much  chance  of  your  being  able  to  go  on  liv- 
ing here;  you  will  have  to  move  into  something  less  ex- 
pensive. I  am  sure  Uncle  William  will  insist  on  it.  There 
is  more  room  than  you  will  want  here  after  I  am  gone, 
and  as  for  appearance  and  society,  there  won't  be  much 
object  in  keeping  that  up." 

Julia  laughed.  "You  don't  think  I  am  a  sufficiently 
marketable  commodity  to  be  worth  much  outlay?"  she 
said.  "You  are  quite  right ;  besides,  it  is  just  that  which 
I  mean;  I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  don't  ad- 
mire the  way  we  live  here." 

"So  have  I,"  Cherie  answered ;  "no  one  in  their  senses 


224  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

would;  but  it  was  the  best  we  could  do  in  the  circum- 
stances and  before  you  grumble  at  it  you  had  better  be 
sure  you  don't  get  something  worse." 

Julia  did  not  think  she  should  do  that,  and  Cherie  see- 
ing it  went  on,  "Oh,  of  course  you  have  got  £50  a  year, 
I  know,  but  you  can't  live  on  that ;  besides,  I  expect  Uncle 
William  will  want  you  to  do  something  else  with  it." 

"I  shall  do  what  I  please,"  Julia  replied,  and  Cherie 
never  doubted  it;  she  would  have  done  no  less  herself 
had  she  been  the  fortunate  legatee,  Uncle  William  or 
twenty  Uncle  Williams  notwithstanding. 

This  important  relative  had  not  been  to  Marbridge 
yet,  in  spite  of  what  he  wrote  to  his  sister;  he  had  not 
been  able  to  get  away.  Indeed,  he  was  not  able  to  do 
so  until  the  day  after  Cherie's  wedding.  Mrs.  Polking- 
ton  was  in  a  happy  and  contented  frame  of  mind;  the 
quiet  wedding  had  gone  off  quite  as  well  as  Violet's 
grander  one — really,  a  quiet  wedding  is  more  effective 
than  a  smart  one  in  the  dull  time  of  year,  and  always,  of 
course,  less  expensive.  Cherie  had  looked  lovely  in  sim- 
ple dress,  and  the  presents,  considering  the  quietness  and 
haste,  were  surprisingly  numerous  and  handsome.  Mr. 
Smith  was  liked  and  respected  by  a  wide  circle.  Mrs. 
Polkington  felt  satisfied  and  also  very  pleased  to  have 
Violet,  her  favourite  daughter,  with  her  again.  She  and 
Violet  were  talking  over  the  events  of  the  day  with  mu- 
tual congratulation,  when  Mr.  William  Ponsonby  was 
announced. 

Fortunately,  Violet's  husband,  Mr.  Frazer,  had  gone 
to  see  his  old  friend  the  vicar,  and  more  fortunately  still, 
he  was  pursuaded  to  stay  and  dine  with  him.  It  would 
have  been  rather  awkward  to  have  had  him  present  at  the 
display  of  family  washing  which  took  place  that  evening. 
Mr.  Ponsonby  did  not  mince  matters;  he  said,  perhaps 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN       225 

not  altogether  without  justice,  that  he  had  had  about 
enough  of  the  Polkingtons.  He  also  said  he  wanted  the 
truth,  and  seeing  that  his  sister  had  long  ago  found  that 
about  her  own  concerns  so  very  unattractive  that  she 
never  dealt  with  it  naked ;  it  did  not  show  beautiful  now. 
In  the  course  of  time,  however,  he  got  it,  or  near  enough 
kfor  working  purposes.  Out  came  all  the  bills,  and  out  came 
the  threatening  letter  and  old  account  books  and  remem- 
bered debts  both  of  times  past  and  present ;  and  when  he 
had  got  them  all,  he  added  them  up,  showed  Mrs.  Polk- 
ington  the  total,  and  asked  her  what  she  was  going  to  do. 

She  said  she  did  not  know ;  privately  she  felt  there  was 
no  need  for  her  to  consider  the  question;  was  it  not  the 
one  her  self-invited  brother  had  come  to  answer?  He 
did  answer  it,  almost  as  soon  as  he  asked  it. 

"You  will  have  to  leave  this  house,"  he  said,  "sell  what 
you  can  of  its  contents  and  pay  all  that  is  possible  of  your 
debts.  You  won't  be  able  to  pay  many  with  that;  the 
rest  I  shall  have  to  arrange  about,  I  suppose.  Oh,  not 
pay ;  don't  think  that  for  a  moment ;  I've  paid  a  deal  more 
than  I  ought  for  you  long  ago.  I  mean  to  see  the  people 
and  arrange  that  you  pay  by  degrees ;  you  will  have  to  de- 
vote most  of  your  income  to  that  for  a  time.  What  will 
you  live  on  in  the  meanwhile?  This  legacy — it  is  you 
who  have  got  it,  isn't  it?  he  said,  turning  to  Julia;  "I 
thought  so.  Fortunately  the  money  is  not  in  any  way  tied 
up,  you  can  get  at  the  principal.  Well,  the  best  thing 
to  be  done  is  to  buy  a  good  boarding-house.  You  could 
make  a  boarding-house  pay,  Caroline,"  he  went  on  to  his 
sister,  "if  you  tried ;  your  social  gifts  would  be  some  use 
there — you  will  have  to  try." 

Mrs.  Polkington  looked  a  little  dismayed,  and  Violet 
said,  "It  would  be  rather  degrading,  wouldn't  it?" 


226  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Not  so  degrading  as  being  sued  at  the  county  court," 
her  uncle  returned. 

Mrs.  Polkington  felt  there  was  truth  in  that,  and,  ac- 
customing herself  to  a  new  idea  with  her  usual  rapidity, 
she  even  began  to  see  that  the  alternative  offered  need 
not  be  so  very  unpleasant.  Indeed,  when  she  came  to 
think  about  it,  it  might  be  almost  pleasant  if  the  boarding- 
house  were  very  select ;  there  would  be  society  of  a  kind, 
perhaps  of  a  superior  kind,  even ;  she  need  not  lose  pres- 
tige and  she  could  still  shine,  and  without  such  tremen- 
dous effort. 

But  her  reflections  were  interrupted  by  the  Captain. 

"And  what  part  have  I  in  this  scheme  ?"  he  asked. 

His  brother-in-law,  to  whom  the  question  was  ad- 
dressed, considered  a  moment.  "Well,  I  really  don't 
know,"  he  said  at  last;  "of  course  you  would  live  in  the 
house." 

"A  burden  on  my  wife  and  daughter!  Idle,  useless, 
not  wanted !" 

The  banker  had  no  desire  to  hurt  Captain  Polkington's 
feelings,  but  he  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  not  hear 
the  truth — that  he  had  long  been  all  these  things ;  idle,  use- 
less, unwanted,  a  burden  not  only  to  his  wife  and  daugh- 
ters, but  also  to  all  relations  and  connections  who  allowed 
themselves  to  be  burdened.  But  the  Captain's  feelings 
were  hurt;  he  was  surprised  and  injured,  though  con- 
vinced of  little  besides  the  hardness  of  fate  and  the  fact 
that  his  brother-in-law  misunderstood  him.  He  turned 
to  his  wife  for  support,  and  she  supported,  corroborat- 
ing both  what  he  said  and  what  her  brother  did  too, 
though  they  were  diametrically  opposed.  It  looked 
rather  as  if  the  discussion  were  going  to  wander  off  into 
side  issues,  but  Julia  brought  it  back  by  inquiring  of  her 
uncle 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN       227 

"What  part  have  I  in  this  scheme?" 

"You  will  help  your  mother,"  he  answered,  "and  of 
course  the  concern  will  be  nominally  yours;  that  is  to 
say,  you  will  put  your  money  in  it,  invest  it  in  that  in- 
stead of  railways  or  whatever  it  is  now  in.  I  shall  see 
that  the  thing  is  properly  secured." 

He  glanced  at  Captain  Polkington  as  he  spoke,  as  if 
he  thought  he  might  have  designs  upon  the  money  or  in- 
vestment. Julia  only  said,  "I  see,"  but  in  so  soft  a  voice 
that  she  roused  Mr.  Ponsonby's  suspicions.  He  had 
dealt  a  good  deal  with  men  and  women,  and  he  did  not 
altogether  like  the  amused  observing  eyes  of  the  legatee, 
and  he  distrusted  her  soft  voice  of  seeming  acquiescense. 

"It  is  of  no  use  for  you  to  get  any  nonsensical  ideas," 
he  said,  "about  what  you  will  do  and  won't  do;  this  is 
the  only  thing  you  can  do ;  you  have  got  to  make  a  living, 
and  you  have  got  to  pay  your  debts;  beggars  can't  be 
choosers.  The  fact  is,  you  have  all  lived  on  charity  so 
long  that  you  have  got  demoralised." 

Violet  flushed.  "Really,"  she  began  to  say,  "though 
you  have  helped  us  once  or  twice,  I  don't  think  you  have 

the  right  to  insult "  but  Mrs.  Polkington  raised  a 

quieting  hand ;  she  did  not  wish  to  offend  her  brother. 

He  was  not  offended;  he  only  spoke  his  mind  rather 
plainly  to  them  all,  which,  though  it  did  no  harm,  did 
little  good  either ;  they  were  too  old  in  their  sins  to  profit 
by  that  now.  After  some  more  unpleasant  talk  all  round, 
the  family  conclave  broke  up ;  Mr.  Frazer  came  home,  and 
every  one  went  to  bed. 

Mr.  Ponsonby  had  Julia's  tiny  room;  there  was  no- 
where else  for  him,  seeing  Violet  and  her  husband  had 
the  one  she  and  her  youngest  sister  shared  in  their  maiden 
days.  Julia  had  to  content  herself  with  the  drawing-room 
sofa ;  it  was  a  very  uncomfortable  sofa,  and  the  blankets 


228  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

kept  slipping  off  so  she  did  not  sleep  a  great  deal ;  but  that 
did  not  matter  much;  she  had  the  more  time  to  think 
things  over.  Dawn  found  her  sitting  at  the  table  wrapped 
in  her  blanket,  writing  by  the  light  of  one  of  the  piano 
candles;  she  glanced  up  as  the  first  cold  light  struggled 
in,  and  her  face  was  very  grave,  it  looked  old,  too,  and 
tired,  with  the  weariness  which  accompanies  renunciation, 
quite  as  often  as  does  peace  or  a  sense  of  beatitude.  She 
looked  at  the  paper  before  her,  a  completely  worked-out 
table  of  expenditure,  a  sort  of  statement  of  ways  and 
means — the  means  being  £50  a  year.  It  could  be  done; 
she  knew  that  during  the  night  when  the  plan  took  shape 
in  her  mind ;  she  had  proved  it  to  herself  more  than  half- 
an-hour  ago  by  figures — but  there  was  no  margin.  It 
could  only  be  done  by  renouncing  that  upon  which  she 
had  set  her  heart ;  she  could  not  work  out  the  scheme  and 
pay  the  debt  of  honour  to  Rawson-Clew.  The  legacy 
had  at  first  seemed  a  heaven-sent  gift  for  that  purpose, 
but  now,  like  the  blue  daffodil,  it  seemed  that  it  could 
not  be  used  to  pay  the  debt.  That  was  not  to  be  paid 
by  a  heaven-sent  gift  any  more  than  by  a  devil-helped 
theft;  slow,  honest  work  and  patient  saving  might  pay 
it  in  years,  but  nothing  else  it  seemed.  She  put  her  el- 
bows on  the  table  and  propped  her  chin  on  her  locked 
hands  looking  down  at  the  unanswerable  figures,  but  they 
still  told  her  the  same  hard  truth. 

"I  might  save  it  in  time ;  I  could  do  without  this — and 
this,"  she  told  herself.  It  is  so  easy  to  do  without  one- 
self when  one's  mind  is  set  on  some  purpose,  but  one  has 
no  right  to  expect  others  to  do  without,  too— the  whole 
thing  would  be  no  good  if  the  others  had  to;  she  knew 
that.  No,  the  debt  could  not  be  paid  this  way ;  she  had 
no  right  to  do  it ;  it  was  her  own  fancy,  her  hobby,  per- 
haps. No  one  demanded  that  it  should  be  paid ;  law  did 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        229 

not  compel  it ;  Rawson-Clew  did  not  expect  it ;  her  father 
considered  that  it  no  longer  existed ;  it  was  to  please  her- 
self and  herself  alone  that  she  would  pay  it,  and  her 
pleasure  must  wait. 

Possibly  she  did  not  reason  quite  all  this ;  she  only  knew 
that  she  could  not  do  what  she  had  set  her  heart  on  doing 
with  the  first  of  Aunt  Jane's  money,  and  the  renunciation 
cost  her  much,  and  gave  her  no  satisfaction  at  all.  But 
the  matter  once  decided,  she  put  it  at  the  back  of  her 
mind,  and  by  breakfast  time  she  was  her  usual  self;  to 
tell  the  truth  she  was  looking  forward  to  a  skirmish  with 
Uncle  William,  and  that  cheered  her. 

After  breakfast  she  led  Mr.  Ponsonby  to  the  drawing- 
room,  and  he  came  not  altogether  unprepared  for  objec- 
tions ;  he  had  half  feared  them  last  night. 

"'Uncle  William,"  she  said.  "I  have  been  thinking  over 
your  plan,  and  I  don't  think  I  quite  like  it." 

"I  dare  say  not,"  her  uncle  answered;  "I  can  believe 
it ;  but  that's  neither  here  nor  there,  as  I  said  last  night, 
beggars  can't  be  choosers." 

Julia  did  not,  as  Violet  had,  resent  this;  she  was  the 
one  member  of  the  family  who  was  not  a  beggar,  and 
she  knew  perfectly  well  she  could  be  a  chooser.  She  sat 
down.  "Perhaps  I  had  better  say  just  what  I  mean,"  she 
said  pleasantly ;  "I  am  not  going  to  do  it." 

"Not  going  to?"  Mr.  Ponsonby  repeated  indignantly. 
"Don't  talk  nonsense;  you  have  got  to,  there's  nothing 
else  open  to  you;  I'm  not  going  to  keep  you  all,  feed, 
clothe  and  house  you,  and  pay  your  debts  into  the  bar- 
gain!" 

"No,"  said  Julia;  "no,  naturally  not;  I  did  not  think 
of  that." 

"What  did  you  think  of,  then?"  her  uncle  demanded; 
he  remembered  that  she  had  the  nominal  disposal  of  her 


230  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

own  money,  and  though  her  objections  were  ridiculous, 
even  impertinent  in  the  family  circumstances,  they  might 
be  awkward.  "What  do  you  object  to?  I  suppose  you 
don't  like  the  idea  of  paying  debts ;  none  of  you  seem  to." 

"No,"  Julia  answered ;  "it  isn't  that ;  of  course  the  debts 
must  be  paid  in  the  way  you  say,  it  is  the  only  way." 

"I  am  glad  you  think  so,"  the  banker  said  sarcastically ; 
"though  I  may  as  well  tell  you,  young  lady,  that  it  would 
still  be  done  even  without  your  approval.  What  is  it  you 
don't  like,  spending  your  money  for  other  people  ?" 

Julia  smiled  a  little.  "We  may  as  well  call  it  that," 
she  said ;  "I  don't  like  the  boarding-house  investment." 

"What  do  you  like?  Seeing  your  parents  go  to  the 
poorhouse?  That's  what  will  happen." 

"No,  they  can  come  and  live  with  me.  I  have  got  a 
large  cottage,  a  garden,  a  field,  and  £50  a  year.  If  we 
keep  pigs  and  poultry,  and  grow  things  in  the  garden  we 
can  live  in  the  cottage  on  the  £50  a  year  till  the  debts  are 
all  paid  off ;  after  that,  of  course,  we  should  have  enough 
to  be  pretty  comfortable.  We  need  not  keep  a  servant 
there,  or  regard  appearances  or  humbug — it  would  be 
very  cheap." 

"And  nasty,"  her  uncle  added.  He  was  not  impressed 
with  the  wisdom  of  this  scheme;  indeed  he  did  not  seri- 
ously contemplate  it  as  possible.  "You  are  talking  non- 
sense," he  said;  "absurd,  childish  nonsense;  you  don't 
know  anything  about  it ;  you  have  no  idea  what  life  in  a 
cottage  means;  the  drudgery  of  cooking  and  scrubbing 
and  so  on ;  the  doing  without  society  and  the  things  you 
are  used  to;  as  for  pigs  and  gardening,  why,  you  don't 
know  how  to  dig  a  hole  or  grow  a  cabbage !" 

But  he  was  not  quite  right ;  Julia  had  learnt  something 
about  drudgery  in  Holland,  something  about  growing 
things,  at  least  in  theory,  and  so  much  about  doing  with- 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        231 

out  the  society  to  which  she  was  used  at  home  that  she 
had  absolutely  no  desire  for  it  left.  She  made  as  much 
of  this  plan  to  Mr.  Ponsonby  as  was  possible  and  desira- 
ble; enough,  at  all  events,  to  convince  him  that  she  had 
thought  out  her  plan  in  every  detail  and  was  very  bent 
on  it. 

"I  suppose  the  utter  selfishness  of  this  idea  of  yours 
has  not  struck  you,"  he  said  at  last.  "You  may  think  you 
would  like  this  kind  of  life,  though  you  wouldn't  if  you 
tried  it,  but  how  about  your  mother?" 

"She  won't  like  it,"  Julia  admitted;  "but  then,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  is  father.  I  suppose  you  know  he  has 
taken  to  drink  lately  and  at  all  times  gambled  as  much 
as  he  could.  What  do  you  think  would  become  of  him 
in  a  boarding-house  in  some  fashionable  place,  with  noth- 
ing to  do,  and  any  amount  of  opportunity  ?" 

Mr.  Ponsonby  did  not  feel  able  or  willing  to  discuss 
the  Captain's  delinquencies  with  his  daughter;  his  only 
answer  was,  "What  will  become  of  your  mother  keeping 
pigs  and  poultry  and  living  in  an  isolated  cottage?  It 
would  be  social  extinction  for  her." 

"The  boarding-house  would  be  moral  extinction  for 
father." 

Mr.  Ponsonby  grew  impatient.  "I  suppose  you  think," 
he  said  irritably,  "that  you  have  reduced  it  to  this — the 
sacrifice  of  one  parent  or  the  other.  You  have  no  busi- 
ness to  think  about  such  things ;  but  if  you  had,  to  which 
do  you  owe  the  most  duty  ?  Who  has  done  the  most  for 
you?" 

"Well,"  Julia  answered  slowly,  "I'm  not  sure  I  am  con- 
sidering duty  only ;  people  who  don't  pay  their  debts  are 
not  always  great  at  duty,  you  know.  Perhaps  it  is  really 
inclination  with  me.  Father  is  fonder  of  me  than  mother 
is ;  I  have  never  been  much  of  a  social  success.  Mother 


232  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

did  not  find  me  such  good  material  to  work  upon,  so 
naturally  she  rather  dropped  me  for  the  ones  who  were 
good  material.  I  admire  mother  the  more,  but  I  am 
sorrier  for  father,  because  he  can't  take  care  of  himself, 
and  has  no  consolation  left ;  it  serves  him  right,  of  course, 
but  it  must  be  very  uncomfortable  all  the  same.  Do  you 
see?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  her  uncle  answered  shortly;  "I  am  old- 
fashioned  enough  to  think  sons  and  daughters  ought  to 
do  their  duty  to  their  parents,  not  analyse  them  in  this 
way."  He  forgot  that  h«  had  in  a  measure  invited  this 
analysis,  and  Julia  did  not  remind  him,  although  no  doubt 
she  was  aware  of  it. 

"I  should  like  to  do  my  duty  to  them  both,"  she  said ; 
"and  I  believe  I  will  do  it  best  by  going  to  the  cottage. 
Father  would  get  to  be  a  great  nuisance  to  mother  at  the 
boarding-house  after  a  time,  almost  as  bad  as  the  pigs 
and  poultry  at  the  cottage.  Also,  if  we  had  the  boarding- 
house,  father's  moral  extinction  would  be  complete,  but 
if  we  lived  at  the  cottage  mother's  social  one  would  not; 
she  could  go  and  stay  with  Violet  and  other  people  the 
worst  part  of  the  time,  while  we  were  shortest  of  money. 
Besides  all  that,  there  are  two  other  things ;  I  like  the  cot- 
tage best  myself,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  the  best — I  know 
the  sort  of  living  life  we  should  live  at  a  boarding-house 
— and  then  there  is  Johnny  Gillat." 

Mr.  Ponsonby  had  no  recollection  of  who  Johnny  Gillat 
was,  and  he  did  not  trouble  to  ask;  Julia's  other  reason 
was  the  one  he  seized  upon.  "You  like  it !"  he  said ;  "yes, 
now  we  have  come  to  the  truth ;  the  person  you  are  con- 
sidering is  yourself ;  I  knew  that  all  along ;  you  need  not 
have  troubled  to  wrap  it  up  in  all  these  grand  reasons — 
consideration  for  your  father,  and  so  on !" 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        233 

"Oh,  but  think  how  much  better  it  sounded!"  Julia 
said,  with  twinkling  eyes. 

Mr.  Ponsonby  did  not  see  the  twinkle ;  he  read  Julia  a 
lecture  on  selfishness  and  ended  up  by  saying,  "You  are 
utterly  selfish  and  ingrain  lazy,  that's  what  you  are;  you 
dont'  want  to  do  a  stroke  of  honest  work  for  any  one." 

"Dishonest  work  is  where  I  shine,"  Julia  told  him. 
"Oh,  not  scoundrelly  dishonesty,  company  promoting, 
and  so  on,"  (Mr.  Ponsonby  was  on  several  boards  of  di- 
rectors, but  he  was  not  a  company  promoter,  still  he 
snorted  a  little)  "I  mean  real  dishonest  work ;  with  a  little 
practice  I  would  make  such  a  thief  as  you  do  not  meet 
every  day  in  the  week." 

"I  can  quite  believe  it,"  her  uncle  retorted  grimly ;  "lazy 
people  generally  do  take  to  lying  and  stealing  and,  as  I 
say,  lazy  is  what  you  are.  Sooner  than  work  for  your 
living,  you  go  and  pig  in  a  cottage,  because  you  think 
that  way  you  can  do  nothing  all  day ;  lead  an  idle  life." 

"Yes,"  Julia  agreed  sweetly ;  "I  think  that  must  be  my 
reason — a  nice  comfortable  idle  life  with  the  pigs  and 
poultry,  and  garden,  and  cooking,  and  scrubbing,  and  two 
incompetent  old  men.  I  really  think  you  must  be  right." 

Here  it  must  be  recorded,  Mr.  Ponsonby  very  nearly 
lost  his  temper,  and  not  without  justification.  Was  he 
not  giving  time  and  consideration  and  (probably)  money 
to  help  this  hopeless  family  on  to  its  legs  again?  And 
was  it  not  more  than  mortal  middle-aged  man  could  bear, 
not  only  to  be  opposed  by  the  only  member  with  any 
means,  but  also  to  be  made  sly  fun  of  by  her  ?  He  gave 
Julia  his  opinion  very  sharply,  and  no  doubt  she  deserved 
it.  But  the  worst  of  it  was  that  did  not  prevent  her  from 
exercising  the  right  of  the  person  who  is  not  a  beggar 
to  choose. 

The   Polkington   family,   who  were   soon   afterwards 


234  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

called  in  to  assist  at  the  discussion,  sided  with  Mr.  Pon- 
sonby.  Violet  and  Mrs.  Polkington  with  great  decision, 
the  Captain  more  weakly.  Eventually  he  was  won  over 
to  Julia  because  her  scheme  seemed  to  hold  a  place  for 
him  where  he  could  flatter  himself  he  was  wanted.  The 
argument  went  on  and  angrily,  on  the  part  of  some  pres- 
ent ;  Julia  was  most  amiable ;  but,  as  the  Van  Heigens  had 
found,  she  was  an  extremely  awkward  antagonist,  the 
more  amiable,  the  more  awkward,  even  in  a  weak  posi- 
tion, as  with  them,  and  in  a  strong  one,  as  now,  she  was 
a  great  deal  worse.  Mr.  Ponsonby  lost  the  train  he  meant 
to  catch  back  to  London;  he  did  not  do  it  only  for  the 
benefit  of  his  sister,  but  also  because  Julia  had  given  bat- 
tle and  he  was  not  going  to  retire  from  the  field.  Violet 
and  Mr.  Frazer  deliberately  postponed  the  hour  of  their 
departure;  Violet  was  determined  not  to  leave  things  in 
this  condition;  Julia's  plan,  she  considered  a  disgrace  to 
the  whole  family.  Mr.  Frazer  was  asked  not  to  come 
to  the  family  council ;  Violet  explained  to  him  that  they 
were  having  trouble  with  Julia;  she  would  tell  him  all 
about  it  afterwards,  but  it  distressed  her  mother  so  much 
that  it  would  perhaps  be  kinder  if  he  was  not  there  at  the 
time.  Mr.  Frazer  quite  agreed;  he  shared  some  of  his 
wife's  sentiments  about  appearances ;  also  he  had  no  wish 
to  be  distressed  either  in  mind  or  tastes. 

Violet  did  tell  him  about  it  afterwards ;  a  curtailed  and 
selected  version,  but  one  eminently  suitable  to  the  purpose. 
On  hearing  it  he  was  justly  angry  with  Julia's  heartless 
selfishness  in  keeping  her  legacy  to  herself.  He  was  also 
shocked  at  her  determination  to  go  and  live  a  farm  labour- 
er's life  in  a  farm  labourer's  cottage.  He  was  truly  sorry 
for  Mrs.  Polkington,  between  whom  and  himself  there 
existed  a  mutual  affection  and  admiration.  He  said  it 
was  bitterly  hard  that  her  one  remaining  daughter  should 


'  A  wonderful  woman  " 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        235 

treat  her  thus ;  that  it  was  barbarous,  impossible,  that  a 
woman  of  her  age,  tastes,  refinement  and  gifts  should  be 
compelled  to  lead  such  a  life  as  was  proposed.  In  fact 
he  could  not  and  would  not  permit  it ;  he  hoped  that  she 
would  make  her  home  at  his  rectory ;  nay,  he  insisted  upon 
it ;  both  Violet  and  himself  would  not  take  a  refusal ;  she 
must  and  should  come  to  them. 

Julia  smiled  her  approval ;  when  things  were  worked  up 
to  this  end;  she  would  have  liked  to  clap  her  applause, 
it  was  so  well  done.  Mrs.  Polkington  and  Violet  were 
so  admirable,  they  were  already  almost  convinced  of  all 
they  said ;  in  two  days  they  would  believe  it  quite  as  much 
as  Mr.  Ponsonby  did  now.  She  did  not  in  the  least  mind 
having  to  appear  as  the  ungrateful  daughter ;  it  fitted  in 
so  beautifully  with  Violet's  arrangement.  And  really 
the  arrangement  was  very  good;  the  utilitarian  feelings 
of  the  family  did  not  suffer  at  wrenches  and  splits  as  did 
more  tender  ones ;  no  one  would  object  much  to  an  advan- 
tageous division.  And  most  advantageous  it  certainly 
was ;  the  cottage  household  would  go  better  without  Mrs. 
Polkington  and  she  would  be  far  happier  at  the  rectory. 
She  would  not  make  any  trouble  there ;  rather,  she  would 
give  her  son-in-law  cause  to  be  glad  of  her  coming ;  there 
would  be  scope  for  her  there,  and  she  would  possibly  de- 
velop better  than  she  had  ever  had  a  chance  of  doing 
before. 

So  everything  was  decided.  The  house  in  East  Street 
was  to  be  given  up,  and  most  of  its  contents  sold;  as 
Julia's  cottage  was  furnished  already  with  Aunt  Jane's 
things,  she  need  only  take  a  few  extras  from  the  home. 
The  debts  were  to  be  paid  as  far  as  possible  now,  and 
the  small  income  was  to  be  divided;  part  was  to  go  as 
pin  money  to  Mrs.  Polkington,  the  main  part  of  the  re- 


236  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

mainder  to  go  to  the  debts,  and  a  very  small  modicum  to 
come  with  the  Captain  to  the  cottage. 

Julia  was  quite  satisfied,  and  let  it  be  apparent.  This, 
with  her  obvious  cheerfulness,  rather  incensed  Violet, 
who  regarded  the  sale  of  their  effects  as  rather  a  disgrace, 
and  Julia's  plans  for  the  future,  as  a  great  one. 

"You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself,"  she  told  her 
younger  sister,  just  before  she  left  Marbridge.  "I  am 
positively  ashamed  to  think  you  belong  to  us.  It  will  be 
nice  to  meet  Norfolk  people  at  the  Palace  or  somewhere, 
who  have  seen  you  tending  your  pigs  and  doing  your 
washing.  It  is  such  an  unusual  name ;  I  can  quite  fancy 
some  one  being  introduced  to  mother  and  thinking  it  odd 
that  her  name  should  be  the  same  as  some  dirty  cottage 
people." 

"Well,"  Julia  suggested,  "why  not  change  it?  Such 
a  trifle  as  a  name  surely  need  not  stand  in  our  way ;  we 
have  got  over  worse  things  than  that.  Mother  can  be 
something  else,  or  I  can ;  mother  had  better  do  it ;  father 
will  forget  who  he  is  if  I  make  a  change." 

"Don't  be  absurd,"  Violet  said ;  "I  only  wish  you  could 
change  it  though ;  I  never  want  to  write  to  you  as  Julia 
Polkington  in  case  some  servant  were  to  notice  the  ad- 
dress ;  one  never  knows  how  these  things  come  out." 

"Don't  write  as  that,"  her  sister  told  her ;  "address  me 
as  'Julia  Snooks'  or  anything  else  you  like;  I  am  not 
particular." 

Violet  did  not  take  this  as  a  serious  suggestion ;  never- 
theless, Julia  told  Mr.  Frazer  on  the  platform  at  Mar- 
bridge  that  she  and  Violet  had  been  having  a  christening, 
and  that  she  was  now  Julia  Snooks.  Mr.  Ponsonby  said 
it  was  ridiculous,  to  which  Julia  replied — 

"That  is  what  I  am  myself." 

Mrs.  Polkington  said  it  was  foolish  too,  but  she  did  not 


THE    END    OF    THE    CAMPAIGN        237 

say  so  vehemently ;  she  felt  that  in  the  Frazer  circle,  espe- 
cially at  the  Palace  where  she  would  meet  people  from 
everywhere,  she  might  possibly  come  across  some  one  who 
had  heard  of  Julia.  It  was  unlikely;  still  it  is  a  small 
world,  and  Polkington  an  uncommon  name.  "Why  not 
choose  something  simple,  like  'Gray'?"  she  suggested. 
"Because,"  Julia  answered,  "that  is  what  I  am  not." 

But  fate  had  one  exceedingly  bitter  pill  for  Mrs.  Polk- 
ington. On  the  day  after  Cherie  and  her  husband  sailed 
for  South  Africa,  it  was  known  in  Marbridge  that  the 
news  of  Mr.  Harding's  engagement  was  false.  The  girl 
gossip  had  coupled  with  him  was  engaged,  it  is  true,  and 
to  a  Mr.  Harding,  but  to  another  and  entirely  different 
bearer  of  the  name.  The  real,  eligible  Mr.  Harding 
called  at  East  Street  to  explain  to  Mrs.  Polkington  how 
the  mistake  had  arisen,  to  tell  her  that  he  himself  had 
been  away  in  the  north  for  some  weeks  and  so  had  heard 
nothing  of  it.  Also  to  hear — and  he  had  heard  nothing 
of  that  either — that  Cherie  was  married  and  gone. 

The  news  of  Mr.  Harding's  freedom  and  his  call,  and 
what  she  fancied  it  might  have  implied,  did  not  reach 
Cherie  till  after  her  arrival  in  Africa.  It  did  not  tend 
to  soothe  the  first  weeks  of  married  life,  nor  to  make 
easier  the  rigorous,  but  no  doubt  wholesome,  breaking-in 
process  to  which  her  husband  wisely  subjected  her. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  GOOD  COMRADE 

RAWSON-CLEW  was  very  busy  that  autumn,  so  busy 
that  the  events  which  had  taken  place  in  Holland  were 
rather  blotted  out  of  his  mind;  he  had  not  exactly  for- 
gotten them,  only  among  the  press  of  other  things  he 
did  not  often  think  about  them  and  they  soon  came  to 
take  their  proper  unimportant  place  among  his  recollec- 
tions. Julia  he  thought  of  occasionally,  but  less  and  less 
in  connection  with  the  foolish  holiday,  more  in  connec- 
tion with  some  chance  saying  or  doing.  Things  recalled 
her,  a  passage  in  a  book,  a  sentiment  she  would  have 
shared,  an  opinion  she  would  have  combated.  Or  per- 
haps it  was  that  some  one  he  met  set  him  thinking  of 
her  shrewd  swift  judgments;  some  scene  in  which  he 
played  a  part  that  made  him  imagine  her  an  amused  spec- 
tator of  its  unconscious  absurdity.  He  had  turned  her 
thyme  flowers  out  of  his  pocket;  he  had  no  sentiment 
about  them  or  her,  but  he  did  not  forget  her;  their  ac- 
quaintance had,  to  a  certain  extent,  been  a  thing  of  mind, 
and  in  mind  it  seemed  he  occasionally  came  in  contact 
with  her  still.  Also  there  is  no  doubt  she  must  have  been 
one  of  those  virile  people  who  take  hold,  for  though  one 
could  sometimes  overlook  her  presence,  in  absence  one 
did  not  forget. 

Of  herself  and  her  doings  he  never  heard ;  at  first  he 
had  half  thought  he  might  have  some  communication 

238 


THE    GOOD    COMRADE  239 

from  Mr.  Gillat,  but  as  the  autumn  went  on  and  he  heard 
nothing,  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  she  really  must 
have  arranged  something  satisfactorily  and  there  was 
an  end  to  the  whole  affair.  He  settled  down  to  his  own 
concerns  and  became  very  thoroughly  absorbed  in  them, 
to  the  exclusion  of  nearly  everything  else.  For  women 
he  never  had  much  taste,  and  now,  being  busy  and  pre- 
occupied, he  got  into  the  way  of  scanning  them  more 
critically  than  ever  when  he  did  happen  to  come  across 
them.  Not  comparing  them  with  any  ideal  standard,  but 
just  finding  them  uninteresting,  whether  they  were  the 
cultivated,  well-bred  girls  of  the  country,  or  the  smart 
young  matrons  and  wide-awake  maidens  of  the  town. 

That  autumn  the  young  Rawson-Clew,  Captain  Polk- 
ington's  acquaintance,  came  into  a  fortune  and  took  a 
wife.  The  latter  was,  perhaps,  on  the  whole,  a  wise  pro- 
ceeding, for,  though  the  wife  in  question  would  undoubt- 
edly help  him  in  the  rapid  and  inevitable  spending  of  the 
fortune,  she  was  likely  also  to  enable  him  to  get  more 
for  his  money  than  if  he  were  spending  alone.  Rawson- 
Clew  was  not  introduced  to  this  lady  till  the  winter,  then, 
one  evening,  he  met  her  at  a  friend's  "at  home." 

She  was  very  pretty,  small  and  fair  and  plump,  with 
childish  blue  eyes,  and  an  anything  but  childish  mind 
behind  them.  She  had  dainty  little  feet,  as  well  shaped 
as  any  he  had  ever  seen,  and  she  was  perfectly  dressed, 
her  gown  a  diaphanous  creation  of  melting  colours  and 
floating  softness,  which  suggested  more  than  it  revealed 
of  her  person,  like  a  nymph's  drapery.  She  was  the 
centre  of  attraction  and  talked  and  laughed  a  great  deal, 
the  latter  in  little  tinkles  like  a  child  of  five,  the  former 
from  the  top  of  her  throat  with  the  faintest  lisp  and  in 
the  strange  jargon  that  was  the  slang  of  the  moment.  She 
knew  no  more  of  Florentine  art  or  Wagner  or  Egyptology 


240  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

than  Julia  did,  and  cared  even  less.  She  set  out  to  be 
intelligently  ignorant — to  be  anything  else  was  called 
"middle-class"  in  her  set — and  she  achieved  her  end,  al- 
though she  could  do  some  things  extremely  well — play 
bridge,  gamble  in  stocks  and  shares  and  anything  else, 
and  arrange  lights  and  colours  with  the  skill  of  an  artist 
when  a  suitable  setting  for  her  pretty  self  was  concerned. 
She  had  all  the  charms  of  womanly  weakness  without 
any  old-fashioned  and  grandmotherly  narrowness;  she 
was  quite  free  and  emancipated  in  mind  and  manners,  no 
man  had  to  modify  his  language  for  her;  she  preferred 
a  double  meaning  to  a  single  one,  and  a  risque  story  to  a 
plain  one.  She  had  an  excellent  taste  in  dinners,  a  critical 
one  in  liqueurs,  and  a  catholic  one  in  men. 

She  was  most  gracious  to  Rawson-Clew  when  he  was 
introduced,  breaking  up  her  court  and  dismissing  her 
admirers  solely  to  accommodate  him.  The  instant  she 
saw  him,  before  she  heard  who  he  was,  she  picked  him  out 
as  the  game  best  worthy  of  her  prowess,  and  she  lost  no 
time  in  addressing  herself  to  the  chase  with  the  skill  and 
determination  of  a  Diana — though  that  perhaps  is  hardly 
a  good  comparison,  enthusiasm  for  the  chase  being  about 
the  only  quality  she  shared  with  the  maiden  huntress. 

Rawson-Clew  did  not  show  signs  of  succumbing  at 
once  to  her  charms;  she  hardly  expected  that  he  would, 
for  she  gave  him  credit  for  knowing  his  own  value  and 
was  not  displeased  thereby;  where  is  the  pleasure  of 
sport  if  the  quarry  be  captured  at  the  outset?  But  if 
he  did  not  succumb  he  did  all  that  was  otherwise  expected 
of  him,  standing  in  attendance  on  her  and  sitting  by  her 
when  he  was  invited  to  the  settee  she  had  chosen  in  a 
quiet  corner.  So  well,  indeed,  did  he  comport  himself 
that  by  the  time  they  parted  she  felt  fairly  satisfied  with 
her  progress. 


THE    GOOD    COMRADE  241 

Perhaps  she  would  have  been  less  satisfied  if  she  had 
heard  something  he  said  soon  after.  A  man  he  knew 
left  the  house  at  the  same  time  he  did  and  persuaded  him 
to  come  to  the  club.  On  the  way  the  little  lady  came  in 
for  some  discussion ;  the  other  man  chiefly  gave  his  opin- 
ion though  he  once  asked  Rawson-Clew  what  he  thought 
of  his  young  cousin's  wife. 

"As  a  wife  ?"  he  answered ;  "I  should  not  think  of  her. 
If  I  wanted,  as  I  certainly  do  not,  the  privilege  of  pay- 
ing that  kind  of  woman's  bills,  I  should  not  bother  to 
marry  her." 

The  other  man  laughed,  but  if  he  quarrelled  with  any- 
thing in  the  answer,  it  appeared  to  be  the  taste  rather  than 
the  judgment.  He  maintained  that  the  lady  was  charm- 
ing ;  Rawson-Clew  merely  said — 

"Think  so?"  and  did  not  even  trouble  to  defend  his 
opinion. 

At  the  club  he  found  a  box  that  had  come  for  him  by 
parcels  post.  A  wooden  one  with  the  address  printed 
on  a  card  and  nailed  to  the  lid,  which  was  screwed  down. 
It  did  not  look  particularly  interesting;  he  told  one  of 
the  club  servants  to  unscrew  it  for  him.  When  he  came 
to  examine  the  contents  he  found,  first  a  lot  of  damp  pack- 
ing, and  then  a  wide-necked  stoppered  bottle,  two-thirds 
full  of  white  powder.  It  bore  a  label  printed  neatly  like 
the  address — 

"Herr  Van  de  Greutz's  Explosive. 

"Formula  as  he  said  it.     .     .     ." 

For  a  moment  Rawson-Clew  held  the  bottle,  staring 
at  it  in  blank  astonishment ;  so  tense  was  his  attitude  that 
it  caught  the  other  man's  attention. 

"Hullo !"  he  said,  "some  one  sent  you  an  infernal  ma- 
chine?" 


242  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Rawson-Ciew  roused  himself.  "No,"  he  answered 
shortly. 

He  put  the  bottle  back  in  the  box  after  he  had  felt  in 
the  packing  and  found  nothing,  then  he  fastened  it  up 
with  more  care  than  was  perhaps  necessary.  He  looked 
at  the  address  on  the  lid,  but  it  told  him  nothing  more 
than  it  had  at  first ;  neither  that  nor  the  name  of  the  post- 
office  from  which  it  was  sent  gave  any  clue  to  the  sender. 
And  yet  he  felt  as  if  Julia  were  at  his  elbow  with  that  mute 
sympathy  in  her  eyes  which  had  been  there  when  they 
talked  of  failure  in  the  wood  on  the  Dunes. 

He  rose,  and  taking  the  box,  went  towards  the  door; 
the  other  man  watched  him  curiously.  "One  would  think 
you  had  found  a  ghost  in  your  box,"  he  said. 

"I'm  not  sure  that  I  have  not,"  Rawson-Clew  looked 
back  to  answer ;  "the  ghost  of  a  good  comrade." 

Then  he  went  home. 

When  he  was  alone  in  his  chambers  and  secure  from 
interruption,  he  opened  the  box  again  and  took  out  all 
the  packing,  carefully  sorting  it.  But  he  found  nothing, 
no  scrap  of  paper,  no  clue  of  any  sort;  he  took  off  the 
linen  rag  that  fastened  in  the  bottle  stopper,  but  that  be- 
trayed nothing  either;  and  yet  he  thought  of  Julia. 

She  was  the  only  person  who  could  know  about  the  ex- 
plosive. It  had  never  been  actually  spoken  of  last  sum- 
mer, but  the  chances  were  she  knew.  She  was  the  only 
person  who  could  have  known  or  who  could  have  got  it. 
It  was  like  her,  so  like  that  he  was  as  sure  as  if  her  name 
were  in  the  box  that  she  was  the  sender.  How  she  had 
got  the  stuff  he  could  not  think,  he  knew  the  difficulties 
in  the  way;  but  she  had  done  it  somehow,  and  now  she 
had  sent  it  to  him,  without  name  for  fear  of  embarrassing 
him,  without  clue,  with  no  desire  for  thanks — loyal,  gen- 
erous, able  little  comrade!  He  looked  up  again;  he  felt 


THE    GOOD    COMRADE  243 

as  if  she  were  bodily  present ;  the  whole  thing,  astounding 
as  he  had  found  it  at  first,  was  somehow  so  characteristic 
of  her.  And  because  of  her  presence  he  suddenly  wished 
he  had  not  been  to  that  evening's  entertainment  and  sat 
close  by  his  cousin's  wife  and  heard  the  things  she  said, 
and  answered  the  things  she  looked.  He  felt  as  if  he 
were  not  clean,  as  if  he  had  no  right  to  entertain  even 
the  ghost  of  the  good  comrade. 

Rawson-Clew  was  not  self-conscious ;  it  never  occurred 
to  him  to  think  if  he  appeared  ridiculous,  whether  he  was 
alone  or  in  company.  He  took  off  his  dress  coat  and 
flung  it  aside  with  a  feeling  of  disgust;  its  sleeve  had 
brushed  that  woman's  bare  arm;  he  could  almost  fancy 
that  a  suggestion  of  the  scent  she  used  clung  to  it.  He 
put  it  out  of  sight  and  fetched  some  other  garment  before 
he  came  back  to  the  thing  which  had  recalled  Julia.  And 
yet  the  girl  was  no  lily-child  with  the  dew  of  dawn  upon 
her ;  he  did  not  for  one  instant  think  she  was ;  probably, 
had  she  been,  she  would  not  have  been  the  good  comrade. 
The  facts  of  life  were  not  strange  to  her,  she  knew  them, 
good  and  bad ;  was  not  above  laughing  at  what  was  funny 
even  if  it  was  somewhat  coarse,  but  she  had  no  taste  for 
lascivious  wallowing  no  matter  under  what  name  dis- 
guised. A  man  could  be  at  home  with  her,  he  could 
speak  the  truth  to  her ;  but  he  would  not  make  a  point  of 
taking  her  into  the  society  of  that  woman,  any  more  than 
he  would  invite  a  friend  to  look  at  the  sink,  unless  there 
was  some  purpose  to  serve. 

Rawson-Clew  took  up  the  bottle  and  looked  at  it,  and 
looked  at  the  address  card  on  the  lid,  all  over  again ;  and 
there  grew  in  his  mind  the  conviction  that  he  been  a  re- 
markable and  particular  fool.  Not  because  he  had  taken 
that  holiday  on  the  Dunes,  nor  yet  because  he  had  failed 
to  get  the  explosive  and  Julia  had  succeeded — he  be- 


244  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

lieved  that  a  man  might  have  average  intelligence  and 
yet  fail  there,  for  he  thought  she  had  more  than  average. 
But  because  he  had  failed  to  recognise  a  fact  that  had 
been  existent  all  the  time — the  need  he  had  for  the  good 
comrade.  Why  had  he  a  better  liking  for  his  work  than 
of  old?  Because  it  was  such  as  she  would  have  liked, 
could  have  done  well,  every  now  and  then  he  fancied  her 
there.  Why  did  he  find  new  pleasure  in  the  hours  he 
spent  reading  Renaissance  Italian,  old  memoirs,  the  ripe 
wisdom  of  the  late  Tudors  and  early  Stuarts?  Because 
he  found  her  in  the  pages,  saw  her  laugh  sometimes,  heard 
her  contradict  at  others ;  felt  her,  invisible  and  not  always 
recognised,  at  his  elbow. 

He  looked  round ;  why  should  not  the  presence  be  fact 
instead  of  fancy?  He  would  go  to  Mr.  Gillat  and  find 
her  whereabouts ;  if  Julia  was  in  England,  as  she  probably 
was,  seeing  that  the  box  was  posted  in  London,  the  old 
man  would  know  where  she  was.  He  would  go  to  Ber- 
wick Street — he  looked  at  the  clock — no,  not  now ;  it  was 
too  late,  or  rather  too  early;  he  would  have  to  wait  till 
the  morning  was  a  good  deal  older. 

Unfortunately  the  carrying  out  of  the  plan  did  not 
prove  very  successful.  Berwick  Street  he  found,  and 
No.  31  he  found,  but  not  Mr.  Gillat ;  he  was  gone  and  had 
left  no  address.  Mrs.  Horn  did  not  seem  troubled  by  the 
omission;  he  had  paid  everything  before  he  went  away, 
and  he  practically  never  had  any  letters  to  be  sent  on; 
why,  she  asked,  should  she  bother  after  his  address  ? 

Rawson-Clew  could  not  tell  her  why  she  should,  nor 
did  he  give  any  reason  why  he  himself  should.  He  went 
away  and,  reversing  the  order  of  his  previous  search,  went 
to  Marbridge. 

But  failure  awaited  him  there,  too.  When  he  came 
to  the  Polkingtons'  house  he  found  it  empty,  the  blinds 


THE    GOOD    COMRADE  245 

down,  the  steps  uncleaned,  and  bills  announcing  that  it 
was  to  let  in  the  windows.  He  stood  and  looked  at  it 
in  the  grey  afternoon,  and  for  a  moment  he  was  conscious 
of  a  feeling  of  desolation  and  disappointment  which  was 
almost  absurd.  He  turned  away  and  began  to  make  in- 
quiries about  the  family.  He  soon  learnt  all  that  was  com- 
monly known.  They  had  been  gone  from  East  Street 
some  little  time  now ;  they  must  have  left  before  the  box 
containing  the  explosive  was  posted.  Julia  had  sent  it 
to  Aunt  Jane's  lawyer,  before  she  set  out  for  the  cottage, 
asking  him  to  dispatch  it  at  a  given  date,  and  he  had  ful- 
filled her  request,  thinking  it  a  wedding  present  and  the 
date  specified  one  near  the  impending  ceremony.  This, 
of  course,  Rawson-Clew  did  not  find  out;  he  found  out 
several  things  about  the  Polkingtons  though,  their  debts 
and  difficulties,  their  sale  and  the  break  up  of  the  family. 
He  also  found  out  that  the  youngest  Miss  Polkington  was 
married  and  the  second,  and  now  only  remaining  one,  had 
come  home  before  the  break  up.  As  to  where  the  family 
were  now,  that  was  not  quite  so  clear;  Mrs.  Polkington 
was  with  one  of  her  married  daughters ;  her  address  was 
easily  obtainable  and  apparently  considered  all  that  any 
one  could  require,  and  quite  sufficient  to  cover  the  rest 
of  the  family.  Captain  Polkington — nobody  thought 
much  about  him — when  they  did,  it  was  generally  con- 
cluded he  was  with  his  wife.  As  for  Julia,  she  must  have 
got  a  suitation  of  some  sort — unless,  which  was  unlikely, 
she  was  with  her  parents.  Rawson-Clew  took  Mrs.  Polk- 
ington's  address — it  was  all  he  could  get — and  determined 
to  write  to  her. 

It  did  occur  to  him  to  write  to  Julia  at  her  sister's  house 
and  request  that  his  letter  was  forwarded ;  but  he  did  not 
do  so ;  he  was  not  at  all  sure  she  would  answer ;  he  want- 
ed to  see  her  face  to  face  this  time.  He  wrote  to  Mrs. 


246  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Polkington  and  asked  her  for  Julia's  address,  introducing 
himself  as  a  friend  met  in  Holland,  and  explaining  his 
reason,  vaguely  to  be  connected  with  that  time. 

When  Mrs.  Polkington  received  the  letter  she  thought 
it  over  a  little;  then  she  showed  it  to  Violet,  and  they 
discussed  it  together.  At  the  outset  they  made  a  mistake ; 
they  only  knew  of  one  person  of  the  name  of  Rawson- 
Clew — the  Captain's  young  acquaintance ;  he  had  certain- 
ly gone  away  from  Marbridge  last  spring  and  so  in  point 
of  time  could  have  met  Julia  in  Holland,  only  it  was  not 
likely  that  he  had,  or  that  he  had  become  friendly  with 
her.  At  least  so  Violet  said ;  Mrs.  Polkington,  who  knew 
what  remarkable  things  herself  and  family  could  do  in  the 
way  of  getting  to  know  people,  was  inclined  to  think  dif- 
ferently. On  one  point,  however,  they  were  agreed;  it 
would  be  very  unpleasant  to  have  to  tell  one  in  the  posi- 
tion of  Mr.  Rawson-Clew  about  Julia's  present  proceed- 
ings. Giving  the  address  would  be  giving  the  informa- 
tion, or  something  like  it — one  would  have  to  explain — 
"Miss  Julia  Snooks,  White's  Cottage,  near  Halgrave." 

"We  can't  do  that,"  Violet  said  with  decision. 

"I  might  say  I  would  forward  a  letter,  perhaps  ?"  Mrs. 
Polkington  suggested. 

But  Violet  did  not  think  that  would  do  either.  "Julia 
would  answer  it,"  she  said;  "and  that  would  be  quite  as 
bad;  you  know,  she  is  not  in  the  least  ashamed  of  her- 
self." 

Mrs.  Polkington  did  know  it.  "I  believe  you  are 
right,"  she  said,  with  the  air  of  one  convinced  against 
her  will;  "Julia  has  voluntarily  cut  herself  adrift  from 
her  own  class;  it  would  be  unpleasant  and  embarrassing 
for  her  as  well  as  for  other  people  to  force  her  into  any 
connection  with  it  again;  I  don't  think  any  purpose  can 
be  served  by  reopening  an  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Raw- 


THE    GOOD    COMRADE  247 

son-Clew,  we  did  not  know  him  at  Marbridge" — she 
never  forgot  that  his  circle  there  did  not  think  her  good 
enough  to  know.  "I  cannot  imagine  that  it  would  be  ad- 
vantageous for  Julia  to  write  to  him  or  hear  from  him 
under  the  present  circumstances.  He  comes  of  a  Nor- 
folk family,  too  (Mrs.  Polkington  always  knew  about 
people's  families  even  when  she  did  not  know  them  per- 
sonally; it  was  the  sort  of  information  that  interested 
her)  ;  "I  don't  know  what  part  of  the  county  his  people 
belong  to,  very  likely  nowhere  near  Julia ;  but  supposing 
it  were  near  enough  for  him  to  know  from  the  address 
what  kind  of  a  place  Julia  was  in,  it  really  might  be  so 
awkward ;  we  ought  to  be  very  careful  for  dear  Richard's 
sake,  especially  seeing  his  connection  with  the  Palace.  I 
really  think  it  would  be  wiser  as  you  say,  to  be  on  the 
safe  side." 

So  she  kept  on  that  side,  which,  being,  interpreted 
meant  leaving  Rawson-Clew's  information  much  where 
it  was  before.  She  wrote  very  nicely,  somewhat  involved, 
not  at  all  baldly;  but  reduced  to  plain  terms  her  letter 
came  to  this— she  was  not  going  to  tell  Julia's  address  or 
anything  about  her. 

So  Rawson-Clew  read  it,  and  very  angry  he  was.  And 
the  worst  of  all  was  that  on  the  same  night  that  he  re- 
ceived this  letter,  he  also  received  orders  to  go  at  once 
to  Constantinople.  He  had  no  time  for  anything  and  no 
choice  but  to  go  and  leave  the  search.  But  during  his 
journey  across  Europe  an  idea  came  to  him  with  the  sud- 
denness of  an  inspiration.  He  knew  what  Julia  had  done 
— she  had  "retired,"  even  as  she  had  said  she  hoped  to  on 
the  first  day  they  walked  together.  She  had  retired 
somewhere  from  shams  and  hypocrisy,  from  society  and 
her  family;  possibly  even  she  had  adopted  the  corduroy 
and  onions  part  of  the  ambition;  if  so,  that  would  ex- 


248  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

plain  her  mother's  refusal,  based  on  some  kind  of  pride, 
to  give  her  address.  She  had  retired,  and  she  had  taken 
Johnny  Gillat  with  her,  and  her  own  people  had  washed 
their  hands  of  her !  He  knew  now  what  to  look  for  when 
he  should  come  back.  He  might  not  be  back  for  two 
months  or  even  three,  but  when  he  did  come  he  would  be 
able  to  find  Julia  and  talk  to  her  about  the  explosive — 
and  other  things. 

It  may  be  here  said  that  the  wonderful  explosive  did  not 
do  what  was  expected  of  it,  either  in  England  or  Holland, 
for  it  was  found  to  decompose  on  keeping.  It  did  every- 
thing else  that  was  boasted  of  it,  but  no  one  succeeded 
in  keeping  it  more  than  fifteen  months,  an  irremediate  de- 
fect in  an  explosive  for  military  purposes.  This,  of 
course,  was  not  discovered  at  first,  and  the  honour  and 
glory  of  obtaining  the  specimen  was  considerable,  if  only 
there  had  been  some  one  to  take  it.  Rawson-Clew  did 
not  consider  himself  the  person. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  SIMPLE  LIFE 

JULIA  was  collecting  fir-cones.  All  around  her  the  land 
lay  brown  and  still;  dead  heather,  and  sometimes  dead 
bracken,  a  shade  paler,  and,  more  rarely,  gorse  bushes, 
nearly  brown,  too,  in  their  sober  winter  dress.  It  was  al- 
most flat,  a  wonderful  illimitable  place,  very  remote,  very 
silent,  unbroken  except  for  occasional  pine-trees.  These 
were  not  scattered  but  grew  in  clumps,  miles  apart, 
though  looking  near  in  this  place  of  distances,  and  also 
in  a  belt  not  more  than  five  or  six  trees  wide,  winding 
mile  after  mile  like  a  black  band  over  the  plain.  Julia 
stood  on  the  edge  of  this  belt  now,  gathering  the  dropped 
cones  and  putting  them  into  a  sack.  The  afternoon  was 
advanced  and  already  it  was  beginning  to  grow  dark 
among  the  trees,  but  she  determined  not  to  go  till  she  had 
got  all  she  could  carry.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had 
been  to  collect  cones;  she  had  sent  her  father  once  and 
Mr.  Gillat  once.  They  had  taken  longer  and  gathered 
less  than  she,  but  it  was  not  on  that  account  that  she  had 
gone  herself  to-day.  Rather  it  was  because  she  wanted 
to  go  to  the  dark  belt  of  trees  which  she  saw  every  day 
from  her  window,  and  because  she  wanted  to  go  right 
out  into  the  wide  open  land  and  see  what  it  looked  like 
and  feel  what  it  felt  like.  And  when  she  got  there  she 
found  it,  like  the  Dunes,  all  she  had  expected  and  more. 

At  last  she  had  her  sack  full,  and,  shouldering  it,  car- 
ried it  off  on  her  back,  which,  seeing  the  comfort  of  the 

249 


250  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

arrangement,  must  be  the  way  Nature  intended  weights 
to  be  carried.  Clear  of  the  shadow  of  the  trees  it  was 
lighter ;  the  grey  sky  held  the  light  long ;  twilight  seemed 
to  creep  up  from  the  ground  rather  than  fall  from  above, 
as  if  darkness  were  an  earth-born  thing  that  gained  slow- 
ly, and,  for  a  time,  only  upon  the  brighter  gift  of  Heaven. 
It  was  quieter,  too,  out  here,  for  under  the  pines,  though 
the  weather  was  still,  there  was  a  breathing  moan  as  if 
the  trees  sighed  incessantly  in  their  sleep.  But  out  here 
in  the  brown  land  it  was  very  quiet ;  the  air  light  and  dry 
and  keen,  with  the  flavour  of  the  not  distant  sea  mingled 
with  the  smell  of  the  pines  and  the  dead  ferns — a  thing 
to  stir  the  pulse  and  revive  the  memory  of  the  divine 
inheritance  and  the  old  belief  that  man  is  but  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels,  related  to  the  infinite  and  god-like. 

White's  Cottage  stood  where  the  heathland  ceased  and 
the  sand  began.  There  was  much  sand;  tradition  said 
it  had  gradually  overwhelmed  a  village  that  lay  beyond; 
indeed,  that  White's  Cottage  was  the  last  and  most  dis- 
tant house  of  the  lost  place.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  cer- 
tainly was  very  solitary,  rather  far  from  the  village  of 
Halgrave,  with  no  road  leading  to  it  except  the  track 
that  came  from  Halgrave  and  stopped  at  the  cottage  gate 
— there  was  nowhere  to  go  beyond. 

Dusk  had  almost  deepened  to  darkness  when  Julia 
reached  the  house ;  it  gleamed  curiously  in  the  half  light, 
for  it  was  built  of  flints,  for  the  most  part  grey,  but  with 
a  paler  one  here  and  there  catching  the  light.  She  put 
her  sack  of  cones  in  one  of  the  several  sheds  which  were 
built  on  the  sides  of  the  cottage,  and  which,  being  of  the 
same  flint  material,  made  it  look  larger  than  it  was.  Then 
she  went  into  the  kitchen. 

Johnny  Gillat  was  there  before  her ;  he  had  been  busy 
in  the  garden  all  the  afternoon,  but,  with  the  help  of  the 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  251 

field-glasses  which  he  had  not  been  allowed  to  sell,  he  had 
descried  her  coming  across  the  open  land.  As  soon  as  he 
was  sure  of  her,  and  while  she  was  still  a  good  way  off, 
he  hurried  away  his  tools  into  the  house  to  get  ready. 
He  wanted  it  all  to  look  to  her  as  it  had  to  him  on  the 
day  when  he  came  back  from  cone-getting — the  fire  blaz- 
ing, the  tea  ready,  the  kitchen  snug  and  neat;  very  un- 
like the  dining-room  at  Marbridge  with  the  one  gas  jet 
burning  and  "Bouquet"  alight.  Of  course  Johnny  did 
not  quite  succeed ;  he  never  did  in  matters  small  or  great, 
but  he  did  his  best.  The  dinner  things,  which  Captain 
Polkington  was  to  have  washed,  were  not  done,  and  still 
about.  They  had  to  be  put  in  the  back  kitchen,  and  John- 
ny, who  had  no  idea  of  saving  labour,  took  so  long  carry- 
ing them  away,  that  he  hardly  had  time  to  set  the  tea. 
He  had  meant  to  make  some  toast,  but  there  was  no  time 
for  that;  the  first  piece  of  bread  had  no  more  than  be- 
gun to  get  warm  when  he  heard  Julia's  step  outside. 
But  the  fire  was  blazing  nicely,  and  that  was  the  chief 
thing ;  even  though  the  putting  on  of  the  kettle  had  been 
forgotten.  When  Julia  came  in  and  saw  the  fire  and 
crooked  tablecloth  and  hastily-arranged  cups,  and  John- 
ny's beaming  face,  she  exclaimed,  "How  cubby  it  looks! 
Why,  you  have  got  the  tea  all  ready,  and" — sniffing  the 
air — "I  believe  you  are  making  toast;  that  is  nice!" 

Mr.  Gillat  beamed ;  then  he  caught  sight  of  the  kettle 
standing  on  the  hearth,  and  his  face  fell. 

But  Julia  put  it  on  the  fire.  "It  will  give  you  good 
time  to  finish  the  toast  while  it  boils,"  she  said;  "toast 
ought  not  to  be  hurried,  you  know;  yours  will  be  just 
right." 

It  was  not;  it  was  rather  smoky  when  it  came  to  be 
eaten,  the  fire  not  being  very  suitable;  but  that  did  not 
matter;  Julia  declared  it  perfect.  This  was  the  only 


252  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

form  of  hypocrisy  she  practised  in  the  simple  life ;  pos- 
sibly, if  she  thought  of  the  will  more  than  the  deed,  it 
was  really  not  such  great  hypocrisy.  At  all  events  she 
practised  it ;  she  did  not  think  truth  so  beautiful  that  frail 
daily  life  must  be  the  better  for  its  undiluted  and  uncom- 
promising application  to  all  poor  little  tender  efforts. 

During  tea  the  great  subject  of  conversation  was  the 
hen  house.  The  last  occupant  of  the  cottage  had  kept 
hens  and  all  the  outbuildings  were  in  good  repair;  how- 
ever, a  recent  gale  had  loosened  part  of  the  roof  of  this 
one,  and  Captain  Polkington  had  been  mending  it.  There 
had  not  been  much  to  do;  the  Captain  could  not  do  a 
great  deal;  his  faculties  of  work — if  he  ever  had  any — 
had  atrophied  for  want  of  use.  Still,  he  thought  he  had 
done  a  good  day's  work,  and,  as  a  consequence,  was  im- 
portant and  inclined  to  be  exacting.  That  is  the  reason 
why  he  had  neglected  the  dinner  things;  he  felt  that  a 
man  who  had  done  all  he  had  was  entitled  to  some  rest 
and  consideration.  Julia  did  not  mind  in  the  least;  if 
he  was  happy  and  contented,  that  was  all  she  wished; 
she  never  reckoned  his  help  as  one  of  the  assets  of  the 
household.  For  that  matter,  she  had  not  reckoned  Mr. 
Gillat's  of  much  value  either,  but  there  she  found  she 
was  a  little  mistaken.  Johnny  was  very  slow  and  very 
laborious  and  really  ingenious  in  finding  a  wrong  way 
of  doing  things  even  when  she  thought  she  had  left  him 
no  choice,  but  he  was  very  painstaking  and  persevering. 
He  would  do  anything  he  was  told,  and  he  took  the  great- 
est pleasure  in  doing  it.  Whether  it  was  digging  in  the 
garden,  or  feeding  the  pigs,  or  collecting  firewood,  or 
setting  the  table  for  meals,  he  was  certain  to  do  every- 
thing to  the  best  of  his  ability,  and  was  perfectly  happy 
if  she  would  employ  him.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  coming  to  White's  Cottage  began  a  time  of  real  hap- 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  253 

pin  ess  to  Mr.  Gillat;  possibly  the  happiest  since  his 
wealthy  boyhood  when  he  spent  lavishly  and  indiscrim- 
inately on  anybody  and  everybody.  The  Captain  was 
less  happy;  his  satisfaction  was  of  an  intermittent  order. 
His  discontent  did  not  take  the  form  of  wishing  to  go 
back  to  Marbridge  or  to  join  his  wife,  only  in  feeling 
oppressed  and  misunderstood,  and  wishing  occasionally 
that  he  had  not  been  born  or  had  been  born  rich — and 
of  course  remained  so  all  his  life.  He  was  dissatisfied 
that  evening  when  the  contentment  begotten  of  his  work 
had  worn  off;  he  wanted  to  go  to  the  market  town  to- 
morrow. Julia  was  going  to  get  several  necessaries  for 
the  household;  he  considered  that  he  ought  to  go  too, 
but  she  would  not  take  him. 

"You  will  have  a  great  deal  to  carry,"  he  protested. 

"Yes,"  Julia  agreed ;  "but  I  shall  manage  it." 

"It  is  not  fit  for  you  to  go  about  alone,"  her  father 
urged. 

She  forebore  to  smile,  though  the  novelty,  not  to  say  tar- 
diness of  the  idea  amused  her;  she  only  said,  "It  would 
take  you  and  Johnny  too  long  to  walk  into  the  town ;  we 
can't  afford  to  spend  too  long  on  the  way,  and  we  can't 
afford  a  cart  to  take  us." 

The  Captain  was  not  convinced;  he  never  was  by  any 
one's  logic  but  his  own;  perhaps  because  his  own  was 
totally  different  to  all  other  kinds,  including  the  painful 
logic  of  facts.  He  sighed  deeply.  "It  is  a  strange,  a 
humiliating  condition  of  things,"  he  observed  to  Mr.  Gil- 
lat, "when  a  father  has  to  ask  his  daughter's  permission 
to  go  into  town." 

Johnny  rubbed  the  side  of  his  chair  thoughtfully,  then 
a  bright  idea  occurred  to  him.  "Ah,  but,"  he  said,  "gen- 
tlemen always  have  to  ask  ladies'  permission  before  they 


254  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

can  accompany  them  anywhere — especially  when  it  is  the 
lady  of  the  house." 

A  wise  man  might  not  perhaps  have  said  this  last,  but 
Johnny  did,  and  as  it  happened,  it  did  not  much  matter; 
before  the  Captain  could  answer,  Julia  rose  from  the  table 
and  began  to  clear  away. 

Sundry  household  jobs  had  to  be  done  in  the  evening ; 
some  were  always  left  till  then ;  in  these  short  dark  days 
it  was  advisable  to  use  the  light  for  work  out  of  doors. 
At  last,  however,  all  was  done,  and  Julia  began  to  ar- 
range for  to-morrow.  The  Captain  was  sulky  and  sure 
that  he  would  have  rheumatism  and  so  not  be  able  to  go 
out.  His  daughter  did  not  seem  to  be  greatly  troubled ; 
she  told  him  of  some  easy  work  in  the  house  he  could 
do,  or  if  he  liked  and  felt  able,  he  would  perhaps  go  and 
get  more  fir-cones ;  there  were  plenty,  and  they  saved 
other  fuel.  The  Captain  replied  that  he  was  not  in  the 
habit  of  taking  orders  from  his  children. 

Johnny  looked  unhappy;  he  did  not  like  these  ruffles 
to  the  tranquil  life ;  it  always  pained  him  for  any  one  to 
be  dissatisfied,  with  reason  or  without  it.  When*  Julia 
turned  to  him  he  was  even  more  ready  than  usual  to  take 
orders;  he  would  have  done  anything  she  told  him  from 
sweeping  the  copper  flue  to  calling  upon  the  rector,  but 
secretly  he  hoped  she  would  give  him  work  in  the  gar- 
den. 

The  garden  was  of  considerable  size,  and,  by  some 
freak  of  nature,  of  fairly  good  soil,  though  the  field  and 
most  of  the  surrounding  land  was  very  poor.  They  had 
all  worked  hard  in  this  plot  ever  since  their  coming ;  there 
was  not  much  more  to  be  done,  or  at  least  not  much  plant- 
ing, which  was  what  Mr.  Gillat  liked.  However,  there 
had  been  no  sharp  frosts  yet  and  Julia,  who  knew  his 
tastes,  thought  she  could  find  something  to  please  him. 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  255 

She  called  him  to  the  back  kitchen  and  between  them 
they  brought  from  there  a  wooden  case,  the  contents  of 
which  she  began  to  sort  over  to  find  an  occupation  suit- 
able to  him.  The  box  was  getting  rather  empty  now, 
but  there  was  still  something  in  it,  bulbs  and  seeds  and 
printed  directions,  and  a  strange  mixed  smell  of  grey- 
ish-brown paper  and  buckwheat  husks  and  the  indescrib- 
able smell  of  Dutch  barns. 

It  had  come  from  Holland,  from  the  Van  Heigens ;  it 
was  Mijnheer's  present  to  the  disgraced  companion  who 
had  been  so  summarily  dismissed.  When  Julia  went  to 
the  cottage,  it  occurred  to  her  to  write  to  Mijnheer  and 
tell  him  where  she  was,  and  how  she  meant  to  live  a 
harmless  horticultural  life.  She  had  come  to  think  that 
perhaps  she  ought  to  tell  him;  she  knew  how  her  own 
words,  about  the  way  they  were  thrusting  a  sinner  down, 
would  stay  with  him  and  his  wife.  They  would  quite 
likely  grow  in  the  slow  mind  of  the  old  man  until  he  be- 
came uneasy  and  unhappy  about  her,  and  blamed  him- 
self for  her  undoing.  At  the  time  that  she  spoke  she 
wanted  the  words  to  so  grow  and  germinate;  but  now, 
looking  back,  she  could  think  differently;  after  all  the 
Van  Heigens  had  only  done  what  they  thought  right,  and 
she  had  done  what  she  knew  to  be  at  least  open  to  doubt. 
And  they  had  not  thrust  her  down;  it  would  take  con- 
siderably more  than  that  to  do  anything  of  the  sort ;  they 
had  allowed  her  an  opportunity  which  she  had  used  to 
achieve  a  great  success.  And  now  that  it  was  achieved 
and  she  had  left  it  all  behind  and  was  settled  to  the  sim- 
ple life — her  vague  ambition — her  heart  went  out  to  the 
simple  folk  who  had  first  shown  her  that  it  might  be 
good ;  who  had  been  kind  to  her  when  there  was  nothing 
to  gain,  who  had  made  her  ashamed. 

So  she  wrote  to  Mijnheer  and  told  him  that  she  had 


256  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

fared  well,  and  found  another  situation  in  Holland  after 
leaving  his  service.  Also  that  she  had  now  left  it  and, 
having  inherited  a  little  property,  had  come  to  live  in  a 
country  cottage  with  her  father.  She  further  said  that 
she  meant  to  imitate  the  Dutch  and  do  her  own  house- 
work and  also  grow  things,  vegetables  especially,  in  her 
garden. 

And  Mijnheer,  when  he  got  the  letter,  was  delighted ; 
so,  too,  was  Mevrouw;  Joost  said  nothing.  They  read 
the  letter  two  or  three  times,  showed  it  to  the  Snieders 
(including  Denah)  and  to  the  Dutch  girl  who  now  filled 
Julia's  situation — more  or  less.  They  talked  over  it  a 
great  deal  and  over  Julia  too;  they  remembered  every 
detail  about  her,  her  good  points  and  her  great  fall.  They 
were  as  delighted  as  they  could  be  to  hear  that  she  was 
well  and  happy  and  apparently,  good.  Mijnheer  espe- 
cially was  pleased  to  hear  that  she  was  with  her  father — 
he  did  not  know  that  gentleman — he  was  sure  she  would 
be  well  looked  after  with  him,  and  that,  so  he  said,  was 
what  she  wanted.  So,  contrary  to  their  theory,  but  not 
out  of  accord  with  their  practice,  they  forgave  the  sin 
for  the  sake  of  the  sinner,  and  Mijnheer  ordered  to  be 
packed,  seeds  and  bulbs  and  plants  for  Julia's  garden. 
He  selected  them  himself,  flowers  as  well  as  vegetables, 
sorts  which  he  thought  most  suitable;  and  he  ordered 
Joost  to  stick  to  the  bags  strips  cut  out  of  catalogues 
where,  in  stiff  Dutch-English,  directions  are  given  as  to 
how  to  grow  everything  that  can  be  grown.  And  if 
Joost  put  in  some  sorts  not  included  in  his  father's  list, 
and  failed  to  tell  the  good  man  about  it,  it  was  no  doubt 
all  owing  to  his  having  at  one  time  associated  with  the 
dishonest  Julia. 

The  packing  and  dispatching  of  the  box  gave  great 
pleasure  to  the  Van  Heigens ;  but  the  receiving  and  un- 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  257 

packing  gave  even  greater  pleasure  when  at  last  it  reached 
Miss  Snooks  at  White's  Cottage.  Julia  had  not  told 
Mijnheer  why  she  was  Miss  Snooks  now  and  he,  after 
grave  consideration,  decided  that  it  must  be  because  of 
the  legacy,  and  in  fulfilment  of  some  obscure  English 
law  of  property.  Having  so  decided,  he  addressed  the 
case  in  good  faith,  and  advised  her  of  its  departure. 

Julia  and  Mr.  Gillat  planted  the  things  that  came  in 
the  box;  Julia  planted  most,  but  Mr.  Gillat  enjoyed  it 
even  when  he  was  only  looking  on.  There  was  one  bulb 
she  set  when  he  was  not  there  to  look  on,  but  it  did  not 
come  with  the  others.  She  chose  a  spot  that  best  ful- 
filled the  conditions  described  in  the  directions  for  grow- 
ing daffodils  and  there,  late  one  afternoon,  she  planted 
the  bulb  that  she  had  brought  with  her  from  the  Van 
Heigens.  Afterwards  she  marked  the  place  round  and 
told  Johnny  and  her  father  there  was  a  choice  flower  there 
which  was  not  to  be  touched. 

Julia  went  to  the  market  town  as  she  had  arranged. 
Mr.  Gillat  worked  in  the  garden;  Captain  Polkington 
watched  him  for  a  little  and  then  went  out,  after  spend- 
ing, as  he  always  did,  some  time  getting  ready.  He  took 
a  basket  with  him ;  he  thought  of  collecting  fir-cones  and 
he  objected  to  the  sack,  thought  it  held  a  vast  deal  more ; 
he  felt  carrying  it  to  be  derogatory  to  a  soldier  and  a 
gentleman.  It  is  true  he  did  not  get  fir-cones  that  day, 
but  he  really  meant  to  when  he  started. 

Julia,  in  the  meantime,  did  her  shopping,  and,  having 
loaded  herself  with  as  much  as  she  could  carry — more 
than  most  people  could  except  those  Continental  maids 
and  mistresses  who  do  their  own  marketing,  she  started 
for  home.  It  was  a  long  walk — a  long  way  to  Halgrave 
and  a  good  bit  beyond  that  to  the  cottage.  She  did  not 
expect  to  reach  the  village  till  dusk,  but  she  thought  very 


258  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

probably  she  would  find  her  father  or  Mr.  Gillat  there; 
she  had  suggested  that  one  or  both  of  them  should  come 
to  meet  her  and  help  carry  the  parcels  the  rest  of  the 
way. 

Johnny  fell  in  with  the  suggestion;  she  saw  him 
through  the  twilight  before  she  reached  the  village.  Her 
father,  she  concluded,  was  still  sulky  at  her  refusal  to 
have  his  company  earlier  and  so  would  not  come  now. 

"I  suppose  father  would  not  come?"  she  said,  as  she 
and  Mr.  Gillat  walked  on  after  a  readjustment  of  the 
burden. 

"Oh,  no,"  Johnny  answered ;  "it  was  not  that ;  I'm  sure 
he  would  have  come  if  he  had  been  in  when  I  started,  but 
he  was  not  back  then." 

"Not  back?"  Julia  repeated.  "Why,  where  has  he 
gone?" 

"Well,"  Johnny  replied  slowly,  "he  said  he  was  going 
to  get  fir-cones,  but  I'm  not  sure,  I  didn't  see  him  go 
across  the  heath.  Still,  I  dare  say  he  went — he  took  a 
basket,  so  I  think  he  must  have  gone." 

Julia  apparently  did  not  find  this  very  conclusive  evi- 
dence. "There  is  not  anywhere  much  about  here  where 
he  can  go,"  she  said;  much  less  as  if  she  were  stating  a 
fact  than  as  if  she  were  reviewing  likely  and  unlikely 
places.  "There  is  only  the  one  road,  and  that  goes  to 
Halgrave,  and  there  is  nowhere  for  him  there." 

"No,  oh,  no,"  Johnny  said;  "there  really  is  nowhere 
there." 

"There  is  the  'Dog  and  Pheasant,' "  Julia  went  on 
meditatively,  "but  he  would  not  get  anything  he  cared 
about  there." 

"No,"  Mr.  Gillat  said  decidedly;  "besides  he  would 
not  go  there,  he  would  not  sit  in  a  small  country  public 
house  and — er — and — sit  there — and  so  on — he  would  not 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  259 

think  of  going  to  such  a  place.  It  is  one  thing  when  you 
are  out  in  the  country  for  a  day's  fishing  or  something, 
to  have  a  glass  of  ale  and  a  piece  of  bread  and  cheese  at 
an  inn,  but  the  other  is  quite  different;  he  wouldn't  do 
that — oh,  no.  To  sit  in  a  little  bar  and " 

"Booze,"  Julia  concluded  for  him.  "Johnny,  you  are 
always  a  wonder  to  me;  how  you  have  contrived  to  live 
so  long  and  yet  to  keep  your  belief  in  man  unspotted  from 
the  world  beats  me." 

Johnny  looked  uncomfortable  and  a  little  puzzled. 
"Well,  but  your  father "  he  began. 

"My  father  is  a  man,"  Julia  interrupted,  "and  I  would 
not  undertake  to  say  a  man  would  not  do  anything — on 
occasions — or  a  woman  either,  for  the  matter  of  that. 
There  is  a  beast  in  most  men,  and  an  archangel  in  lots, 
and  a  snob,  and  a  prig,  and  a  dormant  hero,  and  an  em- 
bryo poet.  There  are  great  possibilities  in  men;  you 
have  to  watch  and  see  which  is  coming  out  top  and  back 
that,  and  then  half  the  time  you  are  wrong.  Of  course, 
at  father's  age,  possibilities  are  getting  over ;  one  or  two 
things  have  come  top  and  stay  there." 

Mr.  Gillat  opened  the  cottage  door  and,  not  answer- 
ing these  distressing  generalities,  fell  back  on  his  one 
fact.  "Look,"  he  said,  pointing  to  an  empty  peg,  "he 
must  have  gone  after  fir-cones;  you  see  the  basket  has 
gone ;  he  took  it  with  him ;  I  am  sure  he  would  not  have 
taken  it  to  the  'Dog.' " 

"I  believe  their  whisky  is  very  bad,"  Julia  said,  and 
seemed  to  think  more  of  that  than  the  argument  of  the 
basket.  "I'll  give  him  another  hour  before  I  set  out 
to  look  for  him." 

She  gave  him  the  hour  and  then,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Gillat's 
entreaties  to  be  allowed  to  go  in  her  place,  set  out  for 
Halgrave.  But  she  did  not  have  to  go  all  the  way,  for 


260  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

she  met  her  father  coming  back.  And  she  early  dis- 
covered that,  if  he  had  not  been  to  the  "Dog  and  Pheas- 
ant," he  had  been  somewhere  else  where  he  could  get 
whisky.  They  walked  home  together,  and  she  made 
neither  comments  nor  inquiries ;  she  did  not  consider  that 
evening  a  suitable  time.  The  Captain  was  only  a  little 
muddled  and,  as  has  been  before  said,  a  very  little  alcohol 
was  sufficient  to  do  that;  he  was  quite  clear  enough  to 
be  a  good  deal  relieved  by  his  daughter's  behaviour,  and 
even  thought  that  she  noticed  nothing  amiss.  Indeed,  by 
the  morning,  he  had  himself  almost  come  to  think  there 
was  nothing  to  notice. 

But  alas,  for  the  Captain !  He  had  never  learnt  to  be- 
ware of  those  deceptive  people  who  bide  their  time  and 
bring  into  domestic  life  the  diplomatic  policy  of  speak- 
ing on  suitable  occasions  only.  He  came  down-stairs 
that  morning  very  well  pleased  with  himself ;  he  felt  that 
he  had  vindicated  the  rights  of  man  yesterday ;  this  con- 
clusion was  arrived  at  by  a  rather  circuitous  route,  but 
it  was  gratifying;  it  was  also  gratifying  to  think  that  he 
had  been  able  to  enjoy  himself  without  being  found  out. 
But  Julia  soon  set  him  right  on  this  last  point;  she  did 
not  reproach  him  or,  as  Mrs.  Polkington  would  have  done, 
point  out  the  disgrace  he  would  bring  upon  them;  she 
only  told  him  that  it  must  not  occur  again.  She  also  ex- 
plained that,  while  he  lived  in  her  house,  she  had  a  right 
to  dictate  in  these  matters  and,  what  was  more,  she  was 
going  to  do  so. 

At  this  the  Captain  was  really  hurt ;  his  feeling  for  dig- 
nity was  very  sensitive,  though  given  to  manifesting  itself 
in  unusual  ways.  "Am  I  to  be  dependent  for  the  rest 
of  my  days  ?"  he  asked. 

Julia  did  not  answer ;  she  thought  it  highly  probable. 

"Am  I  to  be  dictated  to  at  every  turn?"  he  went  on. 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  261 

Julia  did  answer.  "No,"  she  said ;  "I  don't  think  there 
will  be  any  need  for  that." 

Captain  Polkington  paid  no  attention  to  the  answer; 
he  was  standing  before  the  kitchen  fire,  apostrophising 
things  in  general  rather  than  asking  questions. 

"Are  my  goings  out  and  comings  in  to  be  limited  by 
my  daughter  ?  Am  I  to  ask  her  permission  before  I  ac- 
cept hospitality  or  make  friends?" 

"Friends  ?"  said  Julia.  "Then  it  was  not  'The  Dog  and 
Pheasant'  you  went  to,  yesterday  ?  I  thought  not." 

"Then  you  thought  wrong,"  her  father  retorted  incau- 
tiously ;  "I  did  go  there." 

"To  begin  with,"  Julia  suggested ;  "but  you  came  across 
some  one,  and  went  on — is  that  it?" 

The  Captain  denied  it,  but  he  had  not  his  wife's  and 
daughters'  gifts;  his  lies  were  always  of  the  cowardly 
and  uninspired  kind  that  seldom  serve  any  purpose.  Julia 
did  not  believe  him,  and  set  to  work  cross  questioning  him 
so  that  soon  she  knew  what  she  wanted.  It  seemed  that 
her  surmise  was  correst;  he  had  met  some  one  at  the 
"Dog  and  Pheasant" ;  a  veterinary  surgeon  who  had  come 
there  to  doctor  a  horse.  They  had  struck  up  an  acquaint- 
ance— the  Captain  had  the  family  gift  for  that — and  the 
surgeon  had  asked  him  to  come  to  his  house  on  the  other 
side  of  Halgrave. 

When  the  information  reached  this  point  Julia  said 
suavely,  but  with  meaning:  "Perhaps  you  had  better 
not  go  there  again." 

"I  shall  certainly  go  when  I  choose,"  Captain  Polking- 
ton retorted;  "I  should  like  to  know  what  is  to  prevent 
me  and  why  I  should  not?" 

Julia  remembered  his  dignity.  "Shall  we  say  because 
it  is  too  far?"  she  suggested. 

After  that  she  dismissed  the  subject;  she  did  not  see 


262  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

any  need  to  pursue  it  further ;  her  father  knew  her  wishes 
— commands,  perhaps,  he  called  them — all  that  was  left 
for  her  to  do  was  to  see  that  he  could  not  help  fulfilling 
them,  and  that  was  not  to  be  done  by  much  talking  any 
more  than  by  little.  So  she  made  no  further  comments 
on  his  doings  and,  to  change  the  subject,  told  him  she 
had  bought  some  whisky  in  the  town  yesterday  and  he  had 
better  open  the  bottle  at  dinner  time. 

The  Captain  stared  for  a  moment,  but  quickly  recovered 
from  his  astonishment,  though  not  because  he  recognised 
that  a  little  whisky  at  home  was  part  of  a  judicious  sys- 
tem. He  merely  thought  that  his  daughter  was  going 
to  treat  him  properly  after  all,  and  in  spite  of  what  had 
been  lately  said.  This  idea  was  a  little  modified  when 
he  found  that,  though  he  drank  the  whisky,  Julia  kept  the 
bottle  under  lock  and  key. 

It  also  seemed  that  she  found  a  way  of  enforcing  her 
wishes,  or  at  least  preventing  frequent  transgressions  of 
them,  although,  of  course,  she  was  prepared  for  occa- 
sional mishaps.  There  really  was  nothing  at  the  "Dog 
and  Pheasant"  that  the  Captain  could  put  up  with  even 
if  he  had  not  been  always  very  short  of  money — absurd- 
ly short  even  of  coppers — and  Julia  saw  that  he  was  short. 
There  remained  nothing  for  him  but  the  hospitality  of 
acquaintances,  and  they  did  not  abound  in  Halgrave,  the 
only  place  within  reach;  also,  as  he  declared,  they  were 
a  stingy  lot.  The  next  time  he  called  upon  his  new 
friend,  the  veterinary  surgeon,  he  was  at  a  loss  to  under- 
stand this;  it  was  unlike  his  previous  experience  of  the 
man  and  most  disagreeably  surprising ;  he  could  not  think 
why  it  should  happen.  But  then  he  had  not  seen  Julia 
set  out  for  Halgrave  on  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day 
that  she  explained  things  to  him.  She  had  on  all  her 
best  clothes,  even  her  best  boots,  in  spite  of  the  bad  roads. 


THE    SIMPLE    LIFE  263 

She  looked  trim  and  dainty  as  a  Frenchwoman,  but  there 
was  something  about  her  which  suggested  business. 

There  are,  no  doubt,  advantages  attached  to  the  simple 
life.  It  is  decidedly  easier  to  deal  with  your  drawback 
when  you  do  not  have  to  pretend  it  has  no  existence.  You 
can  enlist  help  from  outside  if  you  can  go  boldly  to  veter- 
inary surgeons  and  others,  and  say  that  whisky  is  your 
father's  weakness,  and  would  they  please  oblige  and  grati- 
fy you  by  not  offering  him  any. 


CHAPTER  XVI* 

NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM,  THE  GOOD  COMRADE 

THE  winter  wore  away ;  a  very  long  winter,  and  a  very 
cold  one  to  those  at  the  cottage  who  were  used  to  the 
mild  west  country.  But  at  last  spring  came;  late  and 
with  bitter  winds  and  showers  of  sleet,  but  none  the  less 
wonderful,  especially  as  one  had  to  look  to  see  the  tenta- 
tive signs  of  its  coming.  March  in  Marbridge  used  to 
mean  violets  and  daffodils,  tender  green  shoots  and  balmy 
middays.  March  here  means  days  of  pale  clean  light  and 
great  sweeping  wind  which  chased  grey  clouds  across  a 
steely  sky,  and  stirred  the  lust  for  fight  and  freedom  in 
men's  minds  and  set  them  longing  to  be  up  and  away  and 
at  battle  with  the  world  or  the  elements.  This  restless- 
ness, which  those  who  have  lost  it  call  divine,  took  pos- 
session of  Julia  that  springtime,  and  a  dissatisfaction 
with  the  simple  life  and  its  narrow  limits  beset  her.  Sure- 
ly, she  found  herself  asking,  this  was  not  the  end  of  all 
things — this  cottage  to  be  the  limit  of  her  life  and  am- 
bitions ;  her  work  to  grow  cabbages  and  eat  them,  to  keep 
her  father  in  the  paths  of  temperance  and  sobriety,  and  to 
make  Johnny's  closing  days  happy?  The  March  winds 
spoke  vaguely  of  other  things ;  they  whispered  of  the  life 
she  had  put  from  her;  the  big,  wide,  moving,  thinking, 
feeling  life  which  would  have  been  living  indeed.  Worse, 
they  whispered  of  the  man  who  had  offered  it  to  her,  the 
man  whom  her  heart  told  her  she  would  have  made  friend 
and  comrade  if  only  circumstances  had  allowed  him  to 

264 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     265 

make  her  wife.  But  she  thrust  these  thoughts  from  her ; 
she  had  no  choice,  she  never  had  a  choice;  now  less  if 
possible  than  before,  there  was  no  heart-aching  decision 
to  make.  The  work  she  had  taken  up  could  not  be  put 
down;  she  must  go  on  even  if  voices  stronger  and  more 
real  than  these  wind  ones  called  her  out. 

One  day  the  crocusses  which  Mijnheer  had  sent  came 
into  flower ;  Julia  thought  she  had  never  seen  anything  so 
beautiful  as  the  little  purple  and  golden  cups,  partly  be- 
cause they  had  been  sent  in  kindness  of  heart,  partly,  no 
doubt,  because  she  had  grown  them  herself,  and  she  had 
never  grown  a  flower  which  had  its  root  in  the  inarticu- 
late joy  of  all  things  at  the  first  flowering  of  dead  brown 
earth  and  monotonous  lifeless  days.  The  next  event  in 
her  calendar,  and  Johnny's,  was  the  blooming  of  the  fruit 
trees.  She  had  seen  hillside  orchards  in  the  west  coun- 
try break  into  a  foam  of  flower — a  sight  perhaps  as  beau- 
tiful as  any  England  has  to  show.  But,  to  her  mind,  it 
did  not  compare  with  the  sparse  white  bloom  which  lay 
like  a  first  hoar  frost  on  her  crooked  trees  and  showed 
cold  and  delicate  against  the  pale  blue  sky.  After  that, 
nearly  every  day,  there  was  something  fresh  and  inter- 
esting for  Mr.  Gillat  and  Julia,  so  that  the  March  wind 
was  forgotten,  except  in  the  ill-effect  on  Captain  Polk- 
ington  with  whom  it  had  disagreed  a  good  deal,  both  in 
health  and  temper. 

That  spring,  as  indeed  every  spring,  there  was  a  flower 
show  in  London  at  the  Temple  Gardens.  The  things  ex- 
hibited were  principally  bulb  flowers,  ixias,  iris,  narcissus 
and  the  like;  the  event  was  interesting  to  growers,  both 
professional  and  amateur.  Joost  Van  Heigen  came  over 
from  Holland  to  attend;  he  was  sent  by  his  father  in  a 
purely  business  capacity,  but  of  course  he  was  expected, 
and  himself  expected,  to  enjoy  it,  too;  there  would  be 


266  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

many  novelties  exhibited  and  many  beautiful  flowers  in 
which  he  would  feel  the  sober  appreciative  pleasure  of 
the  connoisseur.  He  came  to  England  some  days  before 
the  show ;  he  had,  besides  attending  that,  to  see  some  im- 
portant customers  on  business,  also  one  or  two  English 
growers. 

Now,  certain  districts  of  Norfolk  are  very  well  suited 
to  the  cultivation  of  bulbs,  so  it  is  not  surprising  that 
Joost's  business  took  him  there.  And,  seeing  that  he  had 
a  Bradshaw  and  a  good  map,  and  had,  moreover,  six 
months  ago  addressed  Julia's  box  of  bulbs  to  her  nearest 
railway  town,  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  found  the  where- 
abouts of  the  town  of  Halgrave.  It  was  on  Saturday 
night  when  he  found  it  on  the  map;  he  was  sitting  in 
the  coffee-room  of  a  temperance  hotel  at  the  time.  He 
had  done  business  for  the  day,  and,  seeing  that  the  Eng- 
lish do  not  care  about  working  on  Sundays,  he  would 
probably  have  to-morrow  as  well  as  to-night  free.  Julia's 
town  was  close — a  short  railway  journey,  then  a  walk  to 
Halgrave,  and  then  one  would  be  at  her  home — it  would 
be  a  pleasant  way  of  spending  the  morning  of  a  spring 
Sunday.  He  thought  about  it  a  little ;  he  had  no  invita- 
tation  to  go  and  see  Julia,  and  he  did  not  like  going  any- 
where without  an  invitation  or  an  express  reason.  She 
might  not  want  to  see  him,  or  it  might  put  out  her  do- 
mestic arrangements  if  he  came;  he  knew  domestic  ar- 
rangements were  subject  to  such  disturbances.  He  hesi- 
tated some  time,  though  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  fact 
that  he  had  asked  her  to  marry  him  and  been  refused  did 
not  come  much  into  his  consideration.  He  had  not  al- 
tered his  mind  about  that  proposal,  and  he  did  not  imagine 
she  had  altered  hers;  his  devotion  and  her  indifference 
were  definite  settled  facts  which  would  remain  as  long 
as  either  of  them  remained,  but  there  was  nothing  em- 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     267 

barrassing  in  them  to  him.  At  last  he  decided  that  he 
would  go,  and  it  was  the  blue  daffodil  which  decided  him. 

He  had  never  heard  what  Julia  had  done  with  the  bulb 
he  had  given  her.  It  was  only  reasonable  to  think  she 
had  sold  it,  seeing  it  was  for  the  sake  of  money  she  had 
wanted  it,  but  no  whisper  of  any  such  thing  had  reached 
him  or  his  father.  He  longed  to  know  about  it,  to  hear 
the  name  of  the  man  who  had  his  treasure ;  for  whom,  in 
all  probability,  it  was  blooming  now.  It  was  some  con- 
noisseur he  was  nearly  certain ;  Julia  would  not  have  sold 
it  to  another  grower.  He  had  not  lain  any  such  condi- 
tion on  her,  but  she  would  not  have  done  that ;  she  knew 
too  well  what  it  meant  to  him;  he  never  doubted  her  in 
that  matter,  his  faith  was  of  too  simple  a  kind.  Still  he 
determined  to  go  and  see  her,  partly  that  he  might  hear 
the  name  of  the  man  who  bought  the  blue  daffodil,  part- 
ly because  he  wanted  to  and  remembered  that  Julia,  in 
the  old  days,  did  not  seem  of  the  kind  to  be  upset  by  un- 
expected visitors  and  similar  small  domestic  accidents. 

It  was  a  hot-dinner  Sunday  at  the  cottage.  These  oc- 
curred alternately ;  on  the  in  between  Sundays  Julia,  sup- 
ported by  Johnny  and  the  Captain,  went  to  church.  On 
those  sacred  to  hot  dinners  she  stayed  at  home  and  did 
the  cooking,  the  Captain  staying  with  her.  Mr.  Gillat 
used  to  also  in  the  winter,  but  lately,  during  the  spring, 
he  had  been  induced  to  teach  in  the  Sunday  school,  and 
now  went  every  Sunday  to  the  village,  first  to  teach  and 
afterwards  to  conduct  his  class  to  church. 

It  was  Mr.  Stevens,  the  Rector  of  Halgrave,  who  had 
made  this  surprising  suggestion  to  Mr.  Gillat.  He,  good 
man,  had  in  the  course  of  time  been  to  see  his  parishion- 
ers at  the  remote  cottage,  grinding  along  the  deep  sandy 
road  on  his  heavy  old  tricycle ;  but  it  was  not  during  the 
visit  that  he  thought  of  Johnny  as  a  teacher ;  it  was  when 


268  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

he  made  further  acquaintance  with  him  at  Halgrave. 
Johnny  was  the  member  of  the  party  who  went  most 
often  to  the  village  shop ;  he  liked  the  expedition,  it  gave 
him  a  feeling  of  importance ;  he  also  liked  gossiping  with 
the  woman  who  kept  the  shop,  and  he  dearly  loved  meet- 
ing the  village  children.  On  one  of  these  occasions, 
when  Johnny  was  engaged  in  making  peace  between  two 
little  girls — little  girls  were  his  specialty — the  rector  met 
him  and  it  was  then  it  occurred  to  him  that  Mr.  Gillat 
might  help  in  the  school.  It  was  not  much  of  an  honour, 
the  school  was  in  rather  a  bad  way  just  now,  and  boasted 
no  other  teachers  than  the  rector  and  a  raspy-tempered 
girl  of  sixteen,  but  Johnny  was  much  flattered.  He 
thought  he  ought  to  refuse;  he  was  quite  sure  he  could 
not  teach;  the  idea  of  his  doing  so  was  certainly  new 
and  strange ;  he  was  also  sure  he  was  not  virtuous  enough. 
But  in  the  end  he  was  persuaded  to  try;  Julia  told  him 
that  he  might  hear  the  catechism  with  an  open  book, 
choose  the  Bible  tales  he  was  surest  of,  to  read  and  ex- 
plain, and  have  his  class  of  little  girls  to  tea  very  often. 
So  it  came  about  that  Mr.  Gillat  set  out  Sunday  after 
Sunday  to  school,  and  if  his  reading  and  expounding  of 
the  Scriptures  was  less  in  accord  with  modern  light  than 
the  traditions  that  held  in  the  childhood  of  the  nation,  no 
one  minded ;  the  children  at  Halgrave  were  not  painfully 
sharp,  and  they  soon  got  to  love  Mr.  Gillat  with  a  friendly 
lemon-droppish  love  which  was  not  critical. 

Captain  Polkington  did  not  approve  of  the  Sunday- 
school  teaching,  especially  on  those  days  when  he  had  to 
clean  the  knives.  The  Sunday  when  Joost  Van  Heigen 
came  was  one  of  these.  The  Captain  watched  Mr.  Gil- 
lat's  preparations  with  a  disgusted  face;  at  last  he  re- 
marked, "I  wonder  if  you  think  you  do  any  good  by  this 
nonsense  ?" 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     269 

Johnny,  who  had  got  as  far  as  the  doorstep,  stopped 
and  considered  rather  as  if  the  idea  had  just  occurred 
to  him. 

"There  must  be  teachers,"  he  said  at  length,  looking 
round  at  the  open  landscape;  "and  there  aren't  many 
about." 

"You  are  a  fine  teacher !"  the  Captain  sneered. 

Mr.  Gillat  rubbed  his  finger  along  the  edge  of  the  Bible 
he  carried.  "I  was  wild,"  he  confessed;  "yes,  I 'was,  I 
don't  think — but  then  the  rector  said — and  Julia " 

His  meaning  was  rather  obscure,  but  possibly  the  Cap- 
tain followed  it  although  he  did  cut  him  short  by  say- 
ing, "I  should  never  have  expected  it  of  you;  if  any  one 
had  told  me  that  you,  one  of  us,  would  take  to  this  sort 
of  thing,  I  would  not  have  believed  it.  I  mean,  if  they 
had  told  me  in  the  old  days,  before  things  were  changed 
and  broken  up,  when  we  were  still  alive  and  things  moved 
at  a  pace — when  a  man  knew  if  he  were  alive  or  dead  and 
whether  it  was  night  or  morning." 

"Yes,  yes,"  Johnny  said,  but  not  altogether  as  if  he 
regretted  the  passing  of  those  golden  days ;  "things  were 
different  then ;  we  didn't  think  of  it  then." 

"Teaching  in  the  Sunday  school?"  the  Captain  asked. 
"Not  quite !  And  if  we  had,  we  shouldn't  have  thought 
of  coming  to  it  even  when  we  had  got  old  and  foolish." 

Johnny  looked  uncomfortable  and  unhappy;  then  a 
bright  idea  occurred  to  him.  "There  wasn't  a  Sunday 
school  there,"  he  said.  "You  remember  the  hill  station  ?" 

Just  then  Julia  called  from  the  house,  "Father,  I  be- 
lieve we  might  have  a  dish  of  turnip  tops  if  you  would 
get  them.  Johnny,  you  will  be  late  if  you  don't  start 
soon." 

Johnny  promptly  started,  and  the  Captain,  less  prompt- 
ly, sauntered  away  to  find  a  basket  for  the  turnip  tops, 


270  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

muttering  the  while  something  about  people  whose  re- 
ligion took  the  form  of  going  out  and  leaving  others  to 
do  the  work. 

But  by  the  time  Joost  Van  Heigen  arrived,  the  Cap- 
tain was  quite  amiable  again.  He  had  had  a  quiet  morn- 
ing with  nothing  to  do  after  the  turnip  tops  were  brought 
in  and  the  knives  cleaned,  and  Johnny  had  had  a  long 
tiring  walk  home  from  church  in  a  hot  sun  and  a  high 
wind,  which  Captain  Polkington  felt  to  be  a  just  dispen- 
sation of  Providence  to  reward  those  who  stopped  at 
home  and  cleaned  knives.  Joost  arrived  not  long  after 
Mr.  Gillat;  Julia  heard  the  gate  click  as  she  was  taking 
the  meat  from  before  the  fire. 

"Who  is  that,  Johnny?"  she  asked. 

Johnny,  who  had  just  come  down-stairs  after  taking 
off  his  Sunday  coat,  looked  out  of  the  window. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said ;  "a  young  man." 

Julia,  having  deposited  the  joint  on  the  dish,  went  to 
the  kitchen  door.  "Put  the  meat  where  it  will  keep  hot," 
she  said  to  Johnny;  "I  expect  it's  some  one  who  thinks 
the  last  people  live  here  still ;  fortunately  there  is  enough 
dinner." 

She  pushed  open  the  unlatched  door  and  saw  the  visitor 
going  round  to  the  front.  "Joost !"  she  exclaimed.  "Why, 
Joost,  is  it  really  you  ?" 

She  ran  down  the  garden  path  after  him  and  he,  turn- 
ing just  before  he  reached  the  front  door,  stopped. 

"Good-morning,  miss,"  he  said  solemnly,  removing  his 
hat  with  a  sweep.  "I  hope  I  see  you  well.  I  do  not  in- 
convenience you — you  are  perhaps  engaged  ?" 

"Come  in,"  Julia  answered;  "I  am  glad  to  see  you!" 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  sincerity  of  her  tone; 
Joost's  solemn  face  relaxed  a  little.  "You  are  not  occu- 
pied ?"  he  said ;  "I  do  not  disturb  you  ?" 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     271 

"Yes,  occupied  in  dishing  up  the  dinner,"  Julia  said, 
"which  is  just  the  best  of  all  times  for  you  to  have  come. 
Johnny !"  she  called ;  "Johnny,  Joost  is  here." 

Mr.  Gillat,  who  had  been  carefully  placing  the  dish 
where  the  cinders  would  fall  into  it,  came  to  the  door. 

"This  is  Mr.  Gillat,  a  very  old  friend  of  mine,"  Julia 
explained,  and  Joost  bowed  deeply,  offering  his  hand  and 
saying,  "I  hope  that  you  are  well,  sir." 

Whereupon  Mr.  Gillat  impressed,  imitated  him  as  near- 
ly as  he  could,  and  Julia  looked  away. 

They  had  dinner  in  the  kitchen  on  Sundays  as  well  as 
week  days,  they  made  no  difference  to-day.  Joost  looked 
round  him  once  or  twice ;  he  had  never  seen  a  place  like 
this.  It  was  the  front  kitchen ;  the  cooking  and  most  of 
the  housework  was  done  in  the  back  one,  a  big  barn-like 
place  with  doors  in  all  corners.  The  front  one  was  half 
a  kitchen  and  half  a  sitting-room,  warm-coloured,  with 
red-tiled  floor  and  low  ceiling,  heavily  cross-beamed  and 
hung  with  herbs  and  a  couple  of  hams,  in  great  contrast 
to  the  whiteness  of  the  kitchen  at  the  bulb  farm.  There 
were  brass  and  copper  pots  and  pans  such  as  he  knew, 
but  they  reflected  an  open  fire,  a  dirty  extravagance  un- 
known to  Mevrouw.  Joost  glanced  at  the  fire,  and  it  is 
to  be  feared  that  he  was  at  heart  a  traitor  to  his  native 
customs.  Then  he  looked  at  the  open  window  where  the 
sunshine  streamed  in — as  was  never  permitted  in  Holland 
— and  he  wondered  if  it  really  spoilt  things  very  much, 
and,  being  a  florist,  thought  it  certainly  would  spoil  the 
tulips  in  the  mug  that  stood  on  the  wide  sill. 

During  dinner  they  spoke  English  for  the  sake  of  the 
Captain  and  Mr.  Gillat ;  Joost  spoke  well,  if  slowly,  with 
a  careful  and  accurate  precision.  He  also  observed 
much,  both  of  outside  things,  as  the  fact  that  Johnny  and 
the  Captain  cleared  the  table  while  Julia  sat  still,  con- 


272  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

trary  to  Dutch  custom.  And  also  of  things  less  on  the 
surface — as  that  Julia  was  head  of  the  household  and 
that  Captain  Polkington  was  not  the  impressive  and  au- 
thoritative person  Mijnheer  seemed  to  think.  Concern- 
ing this  last  fact  he  made  no  remark  when,  on  his  return 
home,  he  described  the  ways  and  customs  of  Julia's  cot- 
tage to  his  parents.  The  description  served  Mevrouw  at 
least,  as  representative  of  all  English  households  ever  af- 
terwards. 

When  dinner  was  done  and  everything  cleared  up,  or 
rather  Julia's  part,  she  took  Joost  into  the  garden. 

"Now,"  she  said  in  Dutch,  "let  us  come  out  and  talk 
and  look  at  things." 

They  went  out  and  he  began  to  admire  her  orderly 
garden  and  to  tell  her  why  this  plant  had  done  well  and 
that  one  had  failed.  He  did  not  speak  of  the  blue  daffo- 
dil, he  thought  he  could  better  ask  about  that  a  little  later. 
She  did  not  speak  of  it  either  by  name ;  he  and  it  were  so 
inseparably  connected  in  her  mind. 

"Come  along,"  she  said,  when  he  stopped  to  look  into 
a  tulip  to  see  if  its  centre  was  as  truly  black  as  it  should 
have  been.  "Come  and  see  it." 

He  followed  her  obediently,  but  asked  what  it  was 
he  was  to  see. 

"The  blue  daffodil,  of  course,"  she  said. 

He  stopped  dead.  "You  have  got  it  here  ?"  he  ex- 
claimed. "You  have  not  sold  it?" 

"Certainly  not." 

"But  why — why  ?"  he  stared  at  her  in  amazement.  "You 
wanted  money,  it  was  for  that  you  wanted  the  bulb,  to 
sell ;  you  told  me  so.  Do  you  not  want  money  now  ?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  Julia  said;  "but  that  is  an  incurable  disease 
hereditary  in  our  family." 

"You  do  want  money?"  he  inquired  mystified.     "This 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     273 

• 
inheritance  is  small,  not  enough?    Why,  then,  did  you 

not  sell  the  bulb?" 

Julia  shrugged  her  shoulders.  "I  could  not  very  well," 
she  said. 

"But  why  not?  You  thought  to  do  so  at  one  time; 
your  intention  was  to  sell  it  if  you  had " 

"Stolen  it?  Yes,  that  is  quite  true,  and  it  would  not 
have  mattered  then.  If  I  had  stolen  it  I  might  as  well 
have  sold  it;  one  dishonourable  act  feels  lonely  without 
another;  it  generally  begets  another  to  keep  itself  com- 
pany." 

Joost  looked  at  her  uncomprehendingly.  "But  why," 
he  persisted,  clinging  to  the  one  thing  he  did  understand, 
"why  did  you  not  sell  it?  It  was  for  that  I  gave  it  to 
you,  to  do  with  as  you  pleased ;  I  knew  you  would  do  only 
what  was  right  and  necessary." 

Julia  could  have  smiled  a  little  at  this  last  word;  it 
seemed  as  if  even  Joost  had  learnt  to  temper  right  with 
necessity  to  suit  her  dealings,  but  she  only  said,  "That 
was  one  reason  why  I  could  not  sell  it.  You  expected 
me  to  do  right,  so  I  was  obliged  to  do  it;  faith  begets 
righteousness  as  dishonour  begets  dishonour." 

"I  do  not  quite  understand,"  he  began,  but  she  cut 
him  short. 

"No,"  she  said;  "we  always  found  it  difficult  to  make 
things  quite  plain,  it  is  no  use  trying  now.  Come  and  see 
the  daffodil,  you  will  understand  that,  at  all  events,  and 
better  than  I  do.  It  is  not  quite  fully  out  yet,  but  very 
nearly,  and — please  don't  be  disappointed — it  is  not  a  real 
true  blu^;  daffodil  at  all." 

She  took  him  to  the  chosen  spot  and  showed  him  the 
plant — a  bunch  of  long  narrow  leaves  rising  from  the 
brown  earth,  and  in  the  midst  of  them  a  single  stalk  sup- 
porting a  partly  opened  flower.  In  shape  it  was  single, 


274  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

like  the  common  wild  blossom,  only  much  bigger;  but 
in  colour,  not  blue  as  was  expected,  but  streaked  in  ir- 
regular unblended  stripes  of  pure  yellow  and  pure  blue. 
The  marking  was  as  hard  and  unshaded  as  that  of  the 
old-fashioned  brown  and  yellow  tulips  which  children  call 
bulls'-eyes,  and  the  effect,  though  bizarre,  was  not  at  all 
pretty.  Julia  did  not  think  it  so,  and  she  did  not  expect 
any  one  else  to  either ;  but  Joost,  when  he  saw  the  streaky 
flower,  gave  a  little  inarticulate  exclamation  and,  drop- 
ping on  his  knees  on  the  path,  lifted  the  bell  reverently 
so  that  he  might  look  into  it. 

"Ah !"  he  said  softly ;  "ah,  it  is  beautiful,  wonderful !" 
He  looked  up,  and  Julia,  seeing  the  wrapt  and  humble 
admiration  of  his  face,  forgot  that  there  was  something 
ludicrous  in  the  sight  of  a  young  man  kneeling  on  a  gar- 
den path  reverently  worshipping  a  striped  flower.  It  was 
no  abstract  admiration  of  the  beautiful,  and  no  cultivated 
admiration  for  the  new  and  strange ;  it  was  the  love  of  a 
man  for  his  work  and  appreciation  of  success  in  it,  even 
if  the  success  were  another's;  also,  perhaps,  in  part,  the 
expression  of  a  deep-seated  national  feeling  for  flowers. 

"Is  it  what  you  wished  ?"  Julia  asked  gently,  conscious 
that  she  was,  as  always,  a  long  way  off  from  Joost. 

"I  did  not  wish  it,"  he  said,  "because  I  did  not  foresee 
it.  No  one  could  foresee  that  it  would  come,  though  it 
always  might.  It  is  a  novelty,  an  accident  of  nature  per- 
haps, but  beautiful,  wonderful !" 

"Is  it  a  real  novelty?"  Julia  asked.  "Just  as  much  as 
your  first  blue  daffodil  was  ?  Oh,  I  am  glad !  Then  you 
have  two  now." 

"I  ?"  Joost  said  in  surprise.  "No,  not  I ;  this  is  yours, 
not  mine;  you  have  grown  it." 

"That's  nothing,"  Julia  returned  easily;  "you  gave  me 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     275 

the  bulb;  it  is  really  your  bulb;  I  only  just  put  it  into  the 
ground,  I  have  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  novelty." 

But  if  she  thought  to  dispose  of  the  matter  in  that  way 
she  soon  found  she  was  mistaken;  there  were  apparently 
laws  governing  bulb  growing  which  were  as  inviolable 
as  any  governing  hereditary  titles.  The  man  who  bloomed 
the  bulb  was  the  man  who  had  produced  the  novelty — 
if  novelty  it  was ;  he  could  no  more  make  over  his  rights 
to  another  than  a  duke  could  his  coronet.  In  vain  Julia 
protested  that  it  was  by  the  merest  chance  that  Joost  had 
hit  on  this  particular  sort  to  give  her,  that  it  was  only 
an  accident  which  had  prevented  him  from  blooming  it 
himself.  He  said  that  did  not  matter  at  all,  and  when 
she  failed  to  be  convinced,  added  that  possibly,  had  he 
kept  the  bulb,  the  result  might  not  have  proved  the  same ; 
her  soil  and  treatment  were  doubtless  both  different. 

Julia  laughed  at  the  idea,  saying  she  knew  nothing 
about  soil  and  treatment.  But  she  made  no  impression  on 
Joost  and  apparently  did  not  alter  the  case;  the  laws 
of  the  bulb  growers  were  not  only  like  those  of  the  "Medes 
and  Persians  which  alter  not,"  but  also  refused  to  be 
bent  or  evaded  even  by  a  Polkington. 

"It  is  yours,"  Joost  said,  as  he  took  a  last  look  at  the 
flower  before  he  rose  from  his  knees ;  "the  great  honour 
is  yours,  and  I  am  glad  of  it." 

There  was  something  in  his  tone  which  reminded  Julia 
of  that  talk  they  had  had  in  the  little  enclosed  place  on 
the  last  day  she  was  at  the  bulb  farm.  She  hastily  sub- 
mitted so  as  to  avoid  the  too  personal.  "What  am  I  to 
do  with  the  honour?"  she  asked.  "I  do  not  know,  that 
is  one  reason  why  it  is  absurd  for  me  to  have  it." 

"You  must  name  your  flower,"  he  told  her ;  "and  then 
you  must  exhibit  it.  Fortunately  you  are  in  time  for  the 
show  in  London." 


276  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"But  I  can't  go  to  London,"  Julia  said;  "it  is  out  of 
the  question  for  me  to  leave  home  even  if  I  could  afford 
the  fare,  which  I  cannot." 

Joost  answered  there  was  no  need;  he  could  arrange 
everything  for  her.  "I  can  take  the  daffodil  to  London 
with  me,"  he  said.  "It  must  be  lifted — you  have  a  flower 
pot,  then  it  must  be  tied  with  care,  and  it  will  travel  quite 
safely." 

"But,"  Julia  objected;  "if  it  is  exhibited  with  my  name, 
and  you  say  my  name  as  the  grower  must  appear,  your 
father  will  hear  of  it  and  then  he  will  know  that  you  gave 
me  a  bulb — it  cannot  be  exhibited.  I  do  not  care  about 
a  certificate  of  merit  or  whatever  one  gets." 

"It  must  be  exhibited,"  Joost  said;  "as  to  my  father, 
he  knows  already,  I  have  told  him ;  that  does  not  stand  in 
the  way." 

To  this  Julia  had  nothing  to  say ;  perhaps  in  her  heart 
she  was  a  little  ashamed  because  she  had  suspected  him 
of  the  half  honesty  of  only  telling  what  was  necessary 
when  it  was  necessary,  that  she  herself  was  likely  to  have 
practised  in  his  case. 

"Now  you  must  call  your  flower  a  name,"  he  said, 
"as  I  called  mine  Vrouw  Van  Heigen." 

"I  will  call  it  after  you,"  Julia  said. 

But  Joost  would  not  have  that.  "That  will  not  do; 
the  blue  daffodil  is  already  a  Van  Heigen;  there  cannot 
be  another,  it  will  make  confusion." 

"Well,  I'll  call  it  the  honest  man,  then;  that  will  be 
you." 

Joost  did  not  like  that  either;  he  thought  it  very  un- 
suitable. "Why  not  name  it  after" — he  began;  he  had 
meant  to  say  "your  father,"  but  recalling  that  gentleman, 
he  changed  it  to — "some  one  of  whom  you  are  fond." 

Julia  hesitated.    "I  like  the  honest  man,"  she  said; 


'"Now  you  must  call  your  flower  a  name,'  he  said" 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     277 

"but  as  you  say  it  is  not  suitable,  the  blue  daffodil  is 
really  the  honest  one,  this  is  too  mixed — I  shall  call  it 
after  Johnny ;  I  am  fond  of  him." 

But  Joost  was  romantic;  it  was  only  natural  with  the 
extreme  and  almost  childish  simplicity  of  his  nature  there 
should  be  some  romance,  and  there  was  nothing  to  satisfy 
that  sentiment  in  Mr.  Gillat.  "Johnny?"  he  said;  "yes, 
but  it  is  not  very  pretty;  it  does  not  suggest  a  beautiful 
flower.  Why  not  call  it  after  the  heroine  of  some  book 
or  a  friend  or  comrade?  Perhaps" — Joost  was  only  hu- 
man— "he  with  whom  you  went  walking  on  the  Dunes." 

"Him?"  Julia  said.  "I  never  thought  of  that.  He 
was  a  friend  certainly,  and  a  good  comrade ;  he  tried  hard 
to  get  me  out  of  that  scrape ;  he  would  have  stood  by  me 
if  I  had  let  him — the  same  as  you  did — you  were  both 
comrades  "o  me  then.  I  tell  you  what,  shall  I  call  it  The 
Good  Comrade?'  Then  it  would  be  after  you  both  and 
Johnny  too ;  Johnny  would  certainly  stand  by  me  through 
thick  and  thin,  share  his  last  crust  with  me,  or  father, 
give  me  the  whole  of  it.  Yes,  we  will  call  the  daffodil 
'The  Good  Comrade,'  and  it  shall  have  three  godfathers." 

With  this  Joost  was  satisfied,  even  though  he  had  to 
share  what  honour  there  was  with  two  others.  Mr.  Gil- 
lat, of  course,  when  he  was  told,  was  much  pleased;  he 
even  found  he  was  now  able  to  admire  the  wonderful 
flower,  though  before,  he  had  agreed  with  Julia's  opinion 
of  it.  To  Captain  Polkington  not  much  was  said  about 
it. 

"Johnny,"  Julia  said,  as  they  stood  watching  Joost  pot 
the  bulb,  "you  are  not  to  tell  father  how  valuable  this  is. 
He  will  find  out  quite  soon  enough;  people  are  sure  to 
bother  me  to  sell  it  after  it  has  been  exhibited,  and  I  am 
not  going  to." 

"No,"  Johnny  said ;  "of  course  not,  naturally  not." 


278  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

So  Captain  Polkington  had  no  idea  why  Joost  carried 
away  a  carefully  tied-up  flower  pot  when  he  left  the  cot- 
tage that  afternoon.  He  only  thought  the  young  man 
must  have  a  most  remarkable  enthusiasm  for  flowers  to 

so  burden  himself  on  a  long  walk. 

***** 

And  in  due  time  the  wonderful  streaked  daffodil,  "Nar- 
cissus Triandrus  Striatum,  The  Good  Comrade,"  grown 
by  Miss  Snooks  of  White's  Cottage,  Halgrave,  was  ex- 
hibited at  the  Temple  Show.  And  bulb  growers,  pro- 
fessional and  amateur,  waxed  enthusiastic  over  it.  And 
the  general  public  who  went  to  the  show,  admired  it  or 
not,  as  their  taste  an  deducation  allowed  them.  And 
among  the  general  public  who  went,  was  a  Miss  Lillian 
Farham,  a  girl  who,  last  September,  had  travelled  north 
with  carnations  in  her  coat  and  Rawson-Clew  in  a  corner 
of  the  railway  carriage.  Miss  Farham  was  an  enthusias- 
tic gardener,  and  having  means  and  leisure  and  a  real 
taste  for  it,  she  had  some  notable  successes  in  the  garden 
of  her  beautiful  home;  and  when  she  was  in  town  she 
never  missed  an  opportunity  of  attending  a  good  show, 
seeing  something  new,  and  learning  what  she  could.  She 
was  naturally  much  interested  in  the  new  streaked  daffo- 
dil ;  so  much  so,  that  she  spoke  of  it  afterwards,  not  only 
to  those  people  who  shared  her  taste,  but  also  to  at  least 
one  who  did  not. 

Rawson-Clew  was  back  in  London.  He  had  not  been 
back  long,  but  already  he  had  begun  the  preliminaries  of 
a  search  for  Mr.  Gillat.  He  decided  that  it  would  be 
easier  to  find  him  than  Julia,  who  might  possibly  have 
changed  her  name  to  oblige  her  family,  and  who  certainly 
would  be  better  able  to  hide  herself,  if  she  had  a  mind 
to,  than  Mr.  Gillat.  He  had  not  as  yet  been  able  to  de- 
vote many  days  to  the  search,  and  had  got  no  further  than 


NARCISSUS  TRIANDRUS  STRIATUM     279 

preliminaries;  still  he  could  already  see  that  it  was  not 
going  to  be  easy  and  might  possibly  be  long.  He  did  not 
go  to  the  show  of  spring  flowers ;  he  did  not  feel  the  least 
interest  in  it,  but  when  by  chance  he  met  Lillian  Far- 
ham  she  spoke  of  it  to  him  and  also  of  the  new  daffodil. 

"It  was  grown  at  Halgrave,  too,"  she  said;  "that  is 
not  so  very  far  from  your  part  of  Norfolk,  is  it  ?" 

"Fifteen  or  twenty  miles,"  Rawson-Clew  answered. 

"Is  it  so  much  as  that?"  she  said;  "I  thought  it  was 
nearer ;  of  course,  then,  you  can't  tell  me  anything  about 
the  grower." 

He  could  not ;  it  is  probable  even  if  the  place  had  been 
much  nearer,  he  still  could  not,  seeing  that  it  was  some 
years  since  he  had  been  to  "his  part  of  Norfolk."  How- 
ever, he  gave  polite  attention  to  Miss  Farham,  who  went 
on  to  describe  the  wonderful  flower  of  mixed  yellow  and 
blue. 

"Blue?"  Rawson-Clew's  interest  became  more  real; 
he  had  once  heard  of  blue  in  connection  with  a  daffodil. 
It  was  one  evening  on  a  long  flat  Dutch  road — the  even- 
ing he  had  tied  Julia's  shoe.  She  had  spoken  of  it,  she 
had  begun  to  say,  when  he  stopped  the  confession  that 
he  thought  she  would  afterwards  regret,  that  she  could 
not  take  the  blue  daffodil. 

"What  is  the  name  ?"  he  asked ;  he  meant  of  the  grower 
in  Norfolk,  though  he  would  have  been  puzzled  to  say 
why  he  asked. 

Miss  Farham,  however,  mistook  his  meaning  and 
thought  he  was  asking  about  the  flower.  "  "The  Good 
Comrade,' "  she  said,  and  fortunately  she  did  not  see  his 
surprise.  "Rather  quaint,  is  it  not?"  she  went  on. 
"Easier  to  remember,  too,  than  some  obscure  grand  duch- 
ess, or  the  name  of  the  grower  or  his  wife  after  whom 
new  flowers  are  usually  called.  The  blue  daffodil,  you 


28o  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

know,  is  called  after  one  of  the  grower's  relatives — 
Vrouw  Van  Heigen." 

Rawson-Clew  said  "Yes,"  though  he  did  not  know  it 
before.  It  struck  him  as  interesting  now;  the  Van 
Heigens  had  a  blue  daffodil  then,  and  Julia  went  to  them 
for  some  purpose  besides  earning  a  pittance  as  compan- 
ion. She  had  not  taken  a  blue  daffodil ;  she  said  so ;  she 
also  said  at  another  time  she  had  failed  in  the  object  of 
her  coming  and  that  failure  and  success  would  have  been 
alike  discreditable.  Poor  Julia!  And  now  here  was 
some  one  in  Norfolk  exhibiting  a  daffodil  of  mixed  blue 
and  yellow  called,  by  a  strange  coincidence,  "The  Good 
Comrade."  Of  course,  it  was  only  a  coincidence  and  yet, 
when  reason  is  not  helping  as  much  as  it  ought,  one  is 
inclined  to  take  notice  of  signs  and  coincidences. 

"What  is  the  name  of  the  grower  of  this  new  flower  ?" 
Rawson-Clew  asked. 

Miss  Farham  told  him. 

"Snooks,"  he  repeated  thoughtfully;  she  imagined  he 
was  trying  to  remember  if  he  had  heard  the  name  before. 
He  was  not;  he  was  wondering  if  any  one  ever  really 
started  in  life  with  such  a  name ;  if,  rather,  it  did  not 
sound  more  like  the  pseudonym  of  one  who  was  indiffer- 
ent to  public  credence,  and  possibly  public  opinion. 

Rawson-Clew  was  not  able  to  tell  Miss  Farham  any- 
thing about  the  grower  of  the  streaked  daffodil ;  he  was 
obliged  to  own  that  he  had  never  heard  of  her  before. 
But  he  made  it  his  business  to  find  out  what  he  could  in 
the  shortest  possible  time ;  this  he  did  not  mention  to  Miss 
Farham.  What  he  discovered  did  not  amount  to  much, 
very  little  in  fact,  but  such  as  it  was,  it  was  enough  to 
bring  him  to  Halgrave. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

BEHIND  THE  CHOPPING-BLOCK 

CAPTAIN  POLKINGTON,  Johnny  and  Julia  were  busy  in 
the  garden.  It  was  a  fine  afternoon  following  after  two 
or  three  wet  days  and  the  ground  was  in  splendid  con- 
dition for  planting,  also  for  sticking  to  clothes.  The 
sandy  road  to  Halgrave  dried  quickly,  but  the  garden, 
of  heavier  soil,  did  not,  as  was  testified  by  Julia's  boots 
— she  had  bought  a  small  pair  of  plough-boy's  boots  that 
spring  and  was  wearing  them  now,  very  pleased  with 
the  investment.  By  and  by  the  sound  of  a  motor  broke 
the  silence;  the  Captain  and  Johnny  left  off  work  to 
listen;  at  least,  Johnny  did;  the  Captain  was  hardly  in 
a  position  to  leave  off,  seeing  that  he  was  off  most  of 
his  time. 

"It  sounds  like  a  motor-car,"  Johnny  said,  as  if  he  had 
made  a  discovery. 

"Then  it  must  have  lost  its  way,"  Julia  answered,  giv- 
ing all  her  attention  to  her  cabbage  plants. 

Johnny  said  "Yes."  It  certainly  seemed  likely  enough ; 
the  ubiquitous  motor-car  went  everywhere  certainly; 
even,  it  was  possible  to  imagine,  to  remote  and  uninter- 
esting Halgrave.  But  along  the  ill-kept  sandy  road 
which  led  to  White's  Cottage  and  nowhere  else,  none  had 
been  yet,  nor  was  it  in  the  least  likely  that  one  would  ever 
come  except  by  accident. 

The  sounds  drew  nearer.  "It  certainly  is  coming  this 

281 


282  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

way,"  the  Captain  said ;  "I  will  go  and  explain  the  mistake 
to  the  people." 

The  Captain  went  to  the  gate ;  but  he  did  not  stop  there, 
nor  did  he  explain  anything.  His  eyesight,  never  having 
been  subjected  to  strain  or  over  work,  was  good,  and 
the  car,  owing  to  the  loose  nature  of  the  road,  was  not 
coming  very  fast ;  he  saw  it  had  only  one  occupant,  a  man 
who  seemed  familiar  to  him.  For  a  second  the  Captain 
stared,  then  he  turned  and  went  into  the  house  in  sur- 
prising haste.  He  had  not  the  least  idea  what  had 
brought  this  man  here;  indeed,  when  he  came  to  think 
about  it,  he  was  sure  it  must  have  been  some  mistake 
about  the  road.  But  he  had  no  desire  to  explain;  he 
felt  he  was  not  the  person  to  do  so,  seeing  that  the  last 
(and  first)  time  he  had  seen  the  man  was  in  an  unpleas- 
ant interview  at  Marbridge.  He  connected  several  pain- 
ful things,  humiliation,  undeserved  epithets,  and  so  on, 
with  that  interview  and  with  the  face  of  Rawson-Clew. 
Accordingly,  he  went  into  the  house  and  waited,  and  the 
car  came  nearer  and  stopped. 

Johnny  and  Julia  went  on  with  their  work;  they 
imagined  the  Captain  was  talking  to  the  strangers;  they 
had  no  idea  of  his  discreet  withdrawal  until  Julia  came 
round  the  corner  of  the  house  to  fetch  a  trowel,  and  saw 
Rawson-Clew  coming  up  the  path. 

Julia's  first  feeling  was  blank  amazement,  but  being  a 
Polkington,  and  being  that  before  she  took  to  the  simple 
life  and  its  honest  ways,  she  allowed  nothing  more  than 
polite  surprise  to  appear. 

"Why!"  she  said,  "I  had  no  idea  you  were  anywhere 
near  here." 

"I  had  no  idea  that  you  were  until  recently,"  he  re- 
turned. 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       283 

She  wondered  how  recently ;  if  it  was  this  minute  when 
chance  brought  her  for  the  trowel — very  likely  it  was, 
and  he  was  here  by  accident. 

"Have  you  lost  your  way?"  she  inquired. 

"Not  to-day." 

"Where  were  you  trying  to  go  ?" 

"White's  Cottage." 

"Oh !"  she  said.  He  did  not  look  amused,  but  she  felt 
as  if  he  were,  and  clearly  it  was  not  accident  that  had 
brought  him. 

"How  did  you  know  I  was  here?"  she  asked.  "There 
are  not  many  people  who  could  have  told  you.  I  have 
retired,  you  know." 

He  settled  his  eyeglass  carefully  in  the  way  she  remem- 
bered, and  looked  first  at  the  cottage  and  then  at  her. 
"I  observe  the  retirement,"  he  said ;  "but  the  corduroy  ?" 

"I  am  wearing  out  my  old  clothes  first,"  she  answered. 

Just  then  Johnny's  voice  was  heard.  "Hadn't  I  better 
water  the  plants?"  it  asked.  Next  moment  Mr.  Gillat 
came  in  sight  carrying  a  big  water  can.  "Julia  hadn't  I 
better "  he  began,  then  he  saw  the  visitor. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Gillat,"  Rawson-Clew  said.  "How  are  you? 
I  am  glad  to  see  you  again ;  last  time  I  called  at  Berwick 
Street  you  were  not  there." 

Johnny  set  down  the  water  can.  "Glad  to  see  you,  he 
said  beaming ;  "very  glad,  very  glad,  indeed" — he  would 
have  been  pleased  to  see  Rawson-Clew  anywhere  if  for 
no  other  reason  than  that  he  had  shown  an  interest  in 
Julia's  welfare. 

Meanwhile  Captain  Polkington  sat  in  the  kitchen  lis- 
tening for  the  sound  of  the  departing  motor.  But  it  did 
not  come;  everything  was  still  except  for  the  ceaseless 
singing  of  larks,  to  which  he  was  so  used  now  that  it  had 
come  almost  to  seem  like  silence.  He  began  to  grow  un- 


284  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

easy;  what  if,  after  all,  Rawson-Clew  were  not  here  by 
accident  and  mistake.  What  if  he  had  come  on  some 
wretched  and  uncomfortable  business?  The  Captain 
could  not  think  of  anything  definite,  but  that,  he  felt,  did 
not  make  it  impossible.  The  man  certainly  had  not  gone, 
he  must  be  staying  talking  to  Julia.  Well,  Julia  could 
talk  to  him,  she  was  more  fit  to  see  the  business  through 
than  her  father  was.  There  was  some  comfort  in  this 
thought,  but  it  did  not  last  long,  for  just  then  the  silence 
was  broken,  there  was  a  sound  of  steps,  not  going  down 
the  path  to  the  gate,  but  coming  towards  the  kitchen  door ! 
The  Captain  rose  hastily — it  was  too  bad  of  Julia,  too 
bad!  He  was  not  fit  for  these  shocks  and  efforts;  he 
was  not  what  he  used  to  be ;  the  terrible  cold  of  the  winter 
in  this  place  had  told  on  his  rheumatism,  on  his  heart. 
He  crossed  the  room  quickly.  The  door  which  shut  in 
the  staircase  banged  as  that  of  the  big  kitchen  was  pushed 
open. 

"You  had  better  take  your  boots  off  here,  Johnny," 
Julia  said ;  "you  have  got  lots  of  mud  on  them." 

She  took  off  her  own  as  she  spoke,  slipping  out  of  them 
without  having  much  trouble  with  the  laces.  Rawson- 
Clew  watched  her,  finding  a  somewhat  absurd  satisfac- 
tion in  seeing  her  small  arched  feet  free  of  the  clumsy 
boots. 

"Are  not  your  stockings  wet?"  he  said. 

"No,"  she  answered ;  "not  a  bit." 

"Are  you  quite  sure?    I  think  they  must  be." 

"No,  they  are  not;  are  they,  Johnny?"  She  stood  on 
one  foot  and  put  the  other  into  Mr.  Gillat's  hand. 

Johnny  felt  it  carefully,  giving  it  the  same  considera- 
tion that  a  wise  housekeeper  gives  to  the  airing  of  sheets, 
then  he  gave  judgment  in  favour  of  Julia. 

"I  was  right,  you  see,"  she  said ;  "they  are  quite  dry." 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       285 

She  looked  up  as  she  spoke,  and  met  Rawson-Clew's 
eyes;  there  was  something  strange  there,  something  new 
which  brought  the  colour  to  her  face.  She  went  quickly 
into  the  other  kitchen  and  began  to  get  the  tea. 

Johnny  came  to  help  her,  and  the  visitor  offered  his  as- 
sistance, too.  Julia  at  once  sent  the  latter  to  the  pump 
for  water,  which  she  did  not  want.  When  he  came  back 
she  had  recovered  herself,  had  even  abused  herself  round- 
ly for  imagining  this  new  thing  or  misinterpreting  it. 
There  was  no  question  of  man  and  woman  between  her 
and  Rawson-Clew ;  there  never  had  been  and  never  could 
be  (although  he  had  asked  her  to  marry  him).  It  was 
all  just  impersonal  and  friendly ;  it  was  absurd  or  worse 
to  think  for  an  instant  that  he  had  another  feeling,  had 
any  feeling  at  all — any  more  than  she.  And  again  she 
abused  herself,  perhaps  because  it  is  not  easy  to  be  sure 
of  feelings,  either  your  own  or  other  people's,  even  if  you 
want  to,  and  it  certainly  is  not  easy  to  always  want  what 
you  ought.  Moreover,  there  was  a  difference ;  it  was  im- 
possible to  overlook  it,  she  felt  in  herself  or  him,  or  both. 
She  had  altered  since  they  parted  at  the  Van  Heigens', 
perhaps  grown  to  be  a  woman.  After  all  she  was  a 
woman,  with  a  great  deal  of  the  natural  woman  in  her, 
too,  he  had  said — and  he  was  a  man,  a  gentleman,  first, 
perhaps,  polished  and  finished,  her  senior,  her  superior — 
yet  a  man,  possibly  with  his  share  of  the  natural  man,  the 
thing  on  which  one  cannot  reckon.  Just  then  the  kettle 
boiled  and  she  made  the  tea. 

"Where  is  father  ?"  she  asked ;  and  Mr.  Gillat  went  to 
look  for  him. 

"He  is  up-stairs,"  he  said  when  he  came  back ;  "he  does 
not  feel  well,  he  says,  not  the  thing;  he'll  have  tea  up 
there;  "I'll  take  it." 


286  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Julia  looked  at  Rawson-Clew  and  laughed.  "He  does 
not  feel  equal  to  facing  you,"  she  said. 

"Yes,  yes,"  Johnny  added,  "that's  it;  that's  what  he 
says — I  mean" — suddenly  realising  what  he  was  saying — 
"he  does  not  feel  equal  to  facing  strangers." 

"Mr.  Rawson-Clew  is  not  a  stranger,"  Julia  answered ; 
she  took  a  perverse  delight  in  recalling  the  beginning  of 
the  acquaintance  which  she  knew  quite  well  was  better 
ignored.  "How  odd/'  she  said,  turning  to  Rawson-Clew, 
"that  father  should  have  forgotten  you,  just  as  you  told 
me  you  had  forgotten  him  and  all  about  the  time  when 
you  saw  him." 

"I  expect  he  regarded  the  matter  as  trivial  and  unim- 
portant, just  as  I  did,"  Rawson-Clew  answered;  "though 
if  I  told  you  I  had  forgotten  all  about  it  I  made  a  mistake ; 
I  can  hardly  say  that;  I  remember  some  details  quite 
plainly;  for  instance,  your  position — you  stood  between 
your  father  and  me — very  much  as  you  did  between  me 
and  and  the  Van  Heigens." 

"I  did  not!"  Julia  said  hotly,  pouring  the  tea  all  over 
the  edge  of  the  cup ;  "I  didn't  stand  between  you  and  the 
Van  Heigens.  I  mean " 

"Allow  me !"  Rawson-Clew  moved  the  cup  so  that  she 
poured  the  tea  into  it  and  not  the  saucer. 

"Dear,  dear!"  Johnny  said;  he  had  not  the  least  idea 
what  they  were  talking  about,  but  he  fancied  that  one  or 
both  must  be  annoyed,  perhaps  by  the  upsetting  of  the 
tea;  he  could  think  of  nothing  else.  "Such  a  mess,"  he 
said;  "and  such  a  waste.  Is  the  cup  ready?  Shall  I 
take  it  up-stairs?" 

"No,  thank  you,"  Julia  said ;  "I  will  take  it." 

Rawson-Clew  did  not  seem  to  mind,  and  Julia,  after 
she  had  lingered  a  little  with  her  father,  decided  to  come 
down  again.  If  she  stayed  away  she  knew  perfectly  well 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       287 

that  Johnny  would  do  nothing  but  talk  about  her ;  more- 
over it  was  absurd  to  be  put  out  because  Rawson-Clew 
could  answer  better  than  Mr.  Gillat ;  that  was  one  of  the 
reasons  for  which  she  had  liked  him. 

Captain  Polkington  sipped  his  tea  and  ate  his  bread 
and  butter  peacefully.  Julia  had  told  him  Mr.  Rawson- 
Clew  would  not  be  staying  long ;  she  had  not  exactly  said 
why  he  was  come,  it  seemed  rather  as  if  she  did  not  know ; 
but  apparently  nothing  unpleasant  had  happened  so  far 
and  he  would  be  going  soon,  directly  after  tea  no  doubt. 
So  the  Captain  sat  contentedly  and  listened  for  the  sound 
of  going,  but  he  did  not  hear  it;  they  were  a  very  long 
time  over  tea,  he  thought. 

They  were;  two  of  them  were  purposely  spinning  it 
out,  the  third  was  only  a  happy  chorus.  Julia  was  in 
no  hurry  to  face  the  questions  about  the  explosive  which 
she  feared  must  come  when  Johnny's  restraining  presence 
was  removed.  She  knew,  as  soon  as  she  was  sure  Raw- 
son-Clew's  coming  was  design  and  not  accident,  that  he 
must  have  suspected  her;  he  had  come  to  talk  about  it 
and  he  would  do  so  as  soon  as  he  got  the  chance,  so  she 
put  it  off.  And  he  was  quite  willing  to  wait  too ;  he  was 
enjoying  the  present  moment  with  a  curious  light-hearted 
enjoyment  much  younger  than  his  years.  And  he  was 
enjoying  the  future  moment,  too,  in  anticipation,  albeit 
he  was  a  little  shy  of  it — he  did  not  quite  know  how  he 
was  to  close  with  the  garrison  in  the  citadel  even  though 
he  might  have  taken  all  the  outposts. 

But  at  last  tea  was  done  and  the  table  cleared  and  all 
the  things  taken  to  the  outer  kitchen  to  be  washed.  Julia 
decreed  that  she  and  Johnny  were  to  do  that,  then  un- 
thinkingly she  sent  her  assistant  for  a  tea-cloth.  Rawson- 
Clew  was  standing  by  the  doorway  when  Johnny  passed ; 
he  followed  him  out. 


288  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Mr.  Gillat,  your  plants  want  watering,"  he  said,  quiet- 
ly but  decisively. 

"They  do,  they  do,"  Johnny  agreed;  "I  will  have  to 
do  them  by  and  by." 

"Do  them  now,  it  is  getting  late." 

"It  is,"  Mr.  Gillat  admitted;  "we  were  late  with  tea, 
but  there's  the  drying  of  the  cups." 

"I  will  do  that." 

Johnny  hesitated;  Julia's  wish  was  his  law,  still  there 
seemed  no  harm  in  the  exchange ;  anyhow,  without  quite 
knowing  how  it  happened,  he  soon  afterwards  found  him- 
self in  the  garden  among  the  water  cans. 

Rawson-Clew  went  back  to  the  outer  kitchen.  Julia 
looked  round  as  she  heard  his  step,  and  seeing  that  he 
was  alone,  recognised  the  manoeuvre  and  the  arrival  of 
the  inevitable  hour. 

"Well,"  she  said,  coming  to  the  point  in  a  business-like 
way  now  that  it  was  unavoidable ;  "what  is  it  you  want  ?" 

"I  want  to  know  several  things,"  he  said,  shutting  the 
door.  "Principally  why  you  called  your  daffodil  'The 
Good  Comrade  ?' " 

"The  daffodil !"  she  repeated  in  frank  amazement ;  she 
was  completely  surprised,  and  for  once  she  did  not  at- 
tempt to  hide  it. 

"Yes,"  Rawson-Clew  said;  "why  did  you  call  it  'The 
Good  Comrade  ?'  " 

Julia  began  to  recover  herself  and  also  her  natural 
caution.  This  was  not  the  question  she  expected,  but 
the  rogue  in  her  made  her  wary  even  of  the  seemingly 
simple  and  safe.  "I  called  it  after  three  friends,"  she 
said,  "who  were  good  comrades  to  me — you,  Johnny  and 
Joost  Van  Heigen.  Why  do  you  ask  ?" 

"Because  I  wondered  if  it  was  a  case  of  telepathy;  I 
also  named  something  'The  Good  Comrade.' " 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       289 

"You?"  she  said.  "What  did  you  name?  Was  it  a 
dog?" 

"No,  a  bottle — small,  wide-necked,  stopper  fastened 
with  a  piece  of  torn  handkerchief,  about  two-thirds  full 
of  a  white  powder !" 

Julia  had  begun  washing  the  cups ;  she  did  her  best  to 
betray  no  sign,  and  really  she  did  it  very  well;  her  eye- 
lids flickered  a  little  and  her  breath  came  rather  quick- 
ly, nothing  more. 

"Why  did  you  name  it  ?"  she  asked.  "It  is  rather  odd 
to  do  so,  isn't  it?" 

"I  named  it  after  the  person  who  gave  it  to  me." 

Julia's  breath  came  a  little  quicker;  she  forgot  to  re- 
mark that  the  same  reason  had  helped  her  in  naming  her 
flower ;  she  was  busy  asking  herself  if  he  meant  her  by  the 
good  comrade. 

"Perhaps  I  did  not  exactly  name  my  bottle,"  he  went 
on  to  say,  "but  it  stood  for  the  person  to  me.  It  was  a 
sort  of  physical  manifestation — rather  a  grotesque  one, 
perhaps — of  a  spiritual  presence  which  had  not  really  left 
me  since  a  certain  sunny  morning  last  year." 

"That  is  very  interesting,"  Julia  managed  to  say;  her 
native  caution  had  not  misled  her;  the  innocently  begin- 
ning talk  had  taken  a  devious  way  to  the  expected  end. 

"It  was  interesting,"  Rawson-Clew  said,  "but  not  quite 
satisfying,  at  least  not  to  the  natural  man.  He  is  not 
content  with  a  manifestation  any  more  than  with  a 
spiritual  presence ;  he  wants  a  corporal  fact." 

Julia  looked  up ;  the  talk  was  taking  an  unforseen  turn 
that  she  did  not  quite  follow,  so  she  looked  up.  And 
then  she  read  something  in  his  face  that  set  her  heart 
beating,  that  made  her  afraid,  less  perhaps  of  him  than 
of  herself,  and  the  thrill  that  ran  like  fire  through  her 
body. 


290  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"I  don't  quite  understand,"  she  said,  and  dropped  a 
cup. 

It  was  meant  to  fall  on  the  flagged  floor  and  break ;  it 
would  create  a  diversion,  and  picking  up  the  pieces  would 
give  her  time  to  get  used  to  the  suffocating  heart-beats. 
She  had  enough  of  the  Polkington  self-mastery  left  to 
think  of  the  manoeuvre  and  its  advisability,  but  not  enough 
to  carry  it  out  properly;  the  cup  fell  on  the  doubled-up 
tea-cloth  that  lay  at  her  feet  and  was  not  broken  at  all. 
Nevertheless  the  incident  and  her  own  contempt  for  her 
failure  steadied  her  a  little. 

Rawson-Clew  picked  up  the  cup.  "Do  you  not  under- 
stand," he  said.  "It  is  quite  simple;  I  have  put  it  to  you 
before,  too — not  in  the  same  words,  but  it  comes  to  the 
same — the  plain  terms  used  then  were — will  you  do  me 
the  honour  of  becoming  my  wife  ?" 

Julia's  heart  seemed  to  stop  for  a  second,  then  it  went 
on  heavily  as  before,  but  she  only  asked,  "Did  you  not 
get  my  letter,  the  one  I  wrote  in  Holland  about  that?" 

"The  one  when  you  told  me  of  your  arrangements? 
By  the  way  you  did  not  mention  that  you  were  going  to 
Van  de  Greutz's  for  the  explosive,  yes,  I  got  that,  but 
it  was  scarcely  an  answer." 

"I  explained  that  it  meant  'no.'  " 

"In  a  postscript ;  you  cannot  answer  a  proposal  of  mar- 
riage in  a  postscript." 

There  really  does  not  seem  sufficient  ground  to  justify 
this  statement,  still  she  did  not  combat  it.  "Can't  I  ?"  she 
said.  "Then  I  will  answer  it  now — no.  It  was  good  of 
you  to  offer,  generous  and  honourable,  but,  of  course,  I 
should  not  accept.  I  mean,  I  could  not  even  if  there  had 
been  any  need,  and,  as  you  see,  there  was  not  a  particle 
of  need  then,  still  less  now." 

"No  need,  no,"  he  answered,  and  there  was  a  new  note 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       291 

in  his  voice ;  "it  is  not  a  case  of  necessity  or  anything  of 
the  sort.  Put  all  that  nonsense  of  justice  and  honour 
and  gratitude  out  of  the  question,  you  know  that  it  does 
not  come  in.  I  own  it  did  weigh  somewhat  then,  but 
now — now  I  want  the  good  comrade ;  I  don't  deserve  her, 
or  a  tithe  of  what  she  has  done  for  me,  but  I  can't  do 
without  her — herself,  the  corporal  fact — don't  you  know 
that?" 

"No,"  Julia  said ;  somehow  it  was  all  she  could  say. 

"You  don't  know  it?  Then  I'll  tell  you."  But  he  did 
not  for  she  prevented  him. 

"Please  don't,"  she  said.  "You  cannot  really  want  me 
because  you  do  not  really  know  me.  Oh,  no,  you  do 
not!" 

"I  think  I  do ;  I  know  enough  to  begin  with ;  the  rest 
of  the  ignorance  you  can  remedy  at  your  leisure." 

"My  leisure  is  now,"  she  said;  "I  will  tell  you  several 
things,  I  will  tell  you  how  I  got  the  explosive.  I  went  as 
a  cook  and  stole  like  a  thief — you  could  have  got  it  as 
easily  as  I  if  you  would  have  stooped  as  readily  as  I  did. 
You  admire  that?  Perhaps  so,  now,  but  you  would  not 
if  you  had  seen  it  being  done.  That  is  the  sort  of  thing 
I  do,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  sort  of  thing  I  like.  The 
day  I  came  home  from  Holland  I  did  what  I  liked — as 
soon  as  I  reached  London  I  went  to  Johnny  Gillat,  my 
dear  old  friend,  who  I  love  better  than  any  one  else  in 
the  world,  and  we  had  a  supper  of  steak  and  onions  in  a 
back  bedroom,  and  we  enjoyed  it — you  see  what  my  tastes 
are  ?  Afterwards  I  heard  how  father  had  taken  to  drink 
and  mother  had  got  into  debt — you  see  what  a  nice  family 
we  are  ?" 

But  here  Rawson-Clew  stopped  her.  "I  knew  some- 
thing like  this  before,"  he  said ;  "the  details  are  nothing ; 
I  do  not  see  what  it  has  to  do  with  the  matter." 


292  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"It  ought  to  have  a  lot,"  she  answered.  "But  even 
if  you  do  know  it  and  a  good  deal  more  and  realise  it  too, 
which  is  a  different  thing,  there  is  still  the  other  side.  I 
don't  know  you,  I  don't  even  know  your  name." 

Then  he  remembered  that  he  must  have  signed  that  of- 
fer of  marriage,  as  he  signed  all  letters,  and  so  left  himself 
merely  "H.  F.  Rawson-Clew"  to  her. 

"You  see,"  she  was  saying,  "it  is  a  mistake  for  people 
who  don't  know  each  other  very  well  to  marry,  they 
would  always  be  getting  unpleasant  surprises  afterwards. 
Besides,  it  would  be  so  uncomfortable ;  it  must  be  pretty 
bad  to  live  at  close  quarters  with  some  one  you  were — 
who  you  didn't  know  very  well,  with  whom  you  minded 
about  things." 

She  had  touched  on  something  that  did  matter  now, 
that  might  matter  very  much  indeed;  Rawson-Clew 
realised  it,  and  realised  with  a  start  of  pain,  that  there 
might  be  a  great  gulf  between  him  and  the  good  com- 
rade after  all.  Her  quick  intuitions  and  perceptions  had 
bridged  it  over  and  led  him  to  forget  that  he  was  a  man 
of  years  and  experience  while  she  was  a  girl,  a  young, 
shy,  half- wild  thing,  veiled,  and  fearing,  to  draw  the  veil 
for  his  experienced  eyes. 

"Tell  me,"  he  said,  facing  her  and  looking  very  grave 
and  old,  "is  that  how  you  feel  about  me  ?" 

She  fidgeted  the  tea-cloth  with  her  foot,  but  being  a 
Polkington,  she  was  able  to  answer  something.  "We  be- 
long to  different  lots  of  people,"  she  said,  examining  the 
shape  the  thing  had  taken  on  the  floor ;  "I  have  got  my 
life  here,  working  in  my  garden  and  so  on ;  and  you  have 
got  yours  a  long  way  off  among  greater  things." 

"You  have  not  answered  me,"  he  said.  "Tell  me — am 
I  the  man  you  described?" 

He  turned  her  so  that  she  could  look  at  him,  the  thing 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       293 

she  dared  not  do.  His  touch  was  light,  almost  mo- 
mentary, but  it  was  too  much,  it  thrilled  through  her  wild- 
ly, irresistibly,  and  she  drew  back  fearing  to  do  anything 
else. 

"Don't!"  she  said,  and  her  voice  was  sharp  with  the 
anger  of  pain. 

He  stepped  back  a  pace.  "Thank  you,"  he  said;  "I 
am  answered." 

Captain  Polkington  had  been  dozing;  there  really  was 
nothing  else  to  do;  but  suddenly  he  was  aroused;  there 
was  a  sound  below;  the  motor  moving  at  last.  Yes,  it 
was  going,  really  going ;  he  went  to  the  window  and,  tak- 
ing care  not  to  be  seen,  watched  the  car  go  down  the 
sandy  road.  After  that  he  went  down-stairs,  and  find- 
ing Johnny,  who  had  finished  his  watering,  persuaded 
him  to  come  for  a  stroll  on  the  heath.  They  took  a  bas- 
ket to  bring  home  anything  they  might  find,  and  shouted 
news  of  their  intention  to  Julia,  who  did  not  answer,  then 
set  out. 

Now,  in  the  present  state  of  their  development,  motors 
are  not  things  on  which  a  man  can  always  rely.  More 
especially  is  this  the  case  when  any  one  like  Mr.  Gillat  has 
had  anything  to  do  with  them.  The  obliging  Johnny,  had 
arranged  the  inside  of  Rawson-Clew's  car,  covering  up 
what  he  thought  might  be  hurt  by  the  sun  and  blowing 
sand  while  it  stood  at  the  roadside,  and  taking  into  the 
house  when  he  went  in  to  tea,  anything  that  conld  be 
stolen  if — as  was  quite  out  of  the  question — one  came 
that  way  with  a  mind  to  steal.  Johnny  had  brought  back 
most  of  the  things  and  replaced  them  before  Rawson- 
Clew  started,  but  not  quite  all.  When  the  car  had  got 
a  little  distance  down  the  road  it,  with  a  perversity  worthy 
of  a  reasonable  being,  developed  a  need  for  the  forgot- 
ten item,  Rawson-Clew  searched  for  it,  could  not  find  it, 


294  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

discovered  that  he  could  not  get  on  without  it,  and,  think- 
ing if  not  saying  something  not  very  complimentary  about 
Mr.  Gillat,  walked  back  to  the  cottage. 

He  supposed  he  would  find  Johnny  in  the  garden,  but 
he  did  not;  he  and  the  Captain  were  some  way  out  on 
the  heath  now,  and,  fortunately  for  the  latter's  peace, 
neither  saw  any  one  approach  the  cottage.  Rawson-Clew 
looked  round  the  garden  and  finding  no  one  decided, 
rather  reluctantly,  that  he  must  go  to  the  house.  He  did 
not  want  to  meet  Julia  again ;  he  thought  it  rather  unlikely 
that  she  should  still  be  in  the  kitchen,  but  there  was  a 
chance  of  it,  so  he  approached  with  a  view  to  reconnoit- 
ering  before  presenting  himself.  The  outer  kitchen,  which 
partook  rather  of  the  nature  of  a  wash-house,  had  a  large 
unglazed  window ;  when  he  drew  near  to  this  he  heard  a 
noise  from  within.  It  sounded  like  some  one  sobbing,  not 
quiet  sobs,  but  slow  deep  spasmodic  ones  like  the  last 
remains  of  a  tempest  of  tears  which  has  not  spent  itself 
but  only  been  imperfectly  suppressed  by  sheer  will.  Raw- 
son-Clew paused  though  possibly  he  had  no  business  to 
do  so. 

"Oh,  why,"  one  wailed  from  within,  "why  is  not  father 
dead?  If  he  were  dead — if  only  he  had  been  dead!" 

The  unglazed  window  was  large  and  rather  high  up,  but 
Rawson-Clew  was  a  man  of  fair  height;  he  was  also 
usually  considered  an  honourable  one,  but  when  he  heard 
the  voice,  saying  something  which  was  plainly  only  meant 
for  the  hearing  of  Omnipotence,  he  did  not  go  away.  He 
put  his  hands  on  the  flintwork  of  the  window-sill  and  in 
a  moment  found  himself  in  the  twilight  of  the  unceiled 
kitchen. 

Julia  was  crouching  in  a  corner,  her  elbows  on  the  old 
chopping-block,  her  face  hidden  on  her  tightly-clenched 
hands,  while  she  struggled  angrily  with  the  shaking  sobs. 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       295 

For  a  moment  she  struggled,  then  mastered  herself  some- 
how and  looked  up,  perhaps  because  she  meant  to  rise 
and  set  about  her  work.  She  had  been  crying  hard  and 
tears  do  not  improve  the  average  face,  certainly  they  did 
not  hers;  and  she  had  been  trying  hard  to  stop,  cram- 
ming a  screwed-up  handkerchief  into  her  eyes  and  that 
did  not  improve  matters  either.  One  would  have  said 
her  face  could  have  expressed  nothing  but  the  extremity 
of  unbecoming  woe,  yet  when  she  caught  sight  of  Raw- 
son-Clew  standing  just  under  the  window  it  changed 
extraordinarily  and  to  anger. 

"Go  away !"  she  said ;  "go  away !    Do  you  hear  ?" 

Rawson-Clew  did  not  go  away;  he  came  nearer  and 
Julia  drew  further  into  the  corner,  ensconsing  herself  be- 
hind the  chopping-block,  and  looking  about  as  inviting  of 
approach  as  a  trapped  rat. 

"Julia,"  he  said. 

"Go  away!"  was  her  only  answer.      > 

"Why  did  you  send  me  away?" 

"Because  I  wanted  you  gone." 

"Because  Captain  Polkington  is  not  dead?  Is  that 
it?" 

"You  are  a  dishonourable  eavesdropper !  No,  it  wasn't 
that." 

He  sat  down  on  the  chopping-block  barricading  her 
corner  so  that  she  could  not  get  out  without  stepping  over 
him.  "Do  you  know  it  strikes  me  that  you  are  not 
strictly  honest  either,  at  least  not  strictly  truthful  just 
now." 

Julia  tugged  at  her  skirt;  the  chopping-block  was  on 
the  hem  and  he  on  it  so  that  she  could  not  get  free.  "Will 
you  please  go,"  she  said,  with  a  catch  in  her  breath. 
That  is  the  worst  of  these  half-suppressed,  unspent  storms 


296  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

of  tears,  they  have  such  a  tendency  to  return  and  break 
out  again  inconveniently. 

"If  it  were  not  for  Captain  Polkington  would  you  have 
sent  me  away?"  he  asked. 

"Y — e — s,"  she  answered,  fighting  with  her  tears.  "Oh, 
go!  Please,  please  go!" 

She  crumpled  herself  into  a  small  miserable  heap  and 
he  leaned  over  the  block  and  drew  her  into  his  arms. 

For  a  moment  she  struggled,  burrowing  her  head  into 
his  coat;  there  was  a  good  deal  of  burrowing  and  not 
much  struggling.  "No,  you  wouldn't,"  he  said  to  her 
hair,  "you  would  have  married  me." 

"I  might  have  said  I  would,  but  I  shouldn't  really 
have  done  it,"  she  contended  without  looking  up.  "I 
shouldn't  when  it  came  to  the  point.  You  had  better 
let  me  go,  I  am  spoiling  your  coat,  my  face  is  all  wet — 
and  I  don't  know  where  my  handkerchief  is." 

"Take  mine,  you  will  find  it  somewhere.  Tell  me,  why 
would  you  not  have  married  me  when  it  came  to  the 
point?  Because  your  courage  failed  you?" 

No  answer ;  then,  "I  can't  find  that  handkerchief." 

"You  have  not  tried.  Are  you  afraid  to  try  ?  Are  you 
afraid  of  me?  Is  that  why  you  would  not  have  married 
me — you  would  have  been  afraid  to  live  at  close  quarters 
with  me?  Do  you  still  think  you  don't  know  me  well 
enough  ?" 

"I  don't  know  your  name." 

The  answer  was  ridiculous,  but  he  knew  how  the  ridi- 
culous touched  even  tragedies  for  Julia. 

"Hubert  Farquhar  Rawson-Clew,"  he  said  solemnly. 
"Now " 

But  whatever  was  to  have  followed  was  prevented,  for 
at  that  moment  she  looked  up,  and  for  some  reason,  sud- 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       297 

denly  decided  things  had  gone  far  enough,  and  so  freed 
herself. 

"I  don't  think  it  matters  much  what  I  should  have 
done,"  she  said,  "or  why,  either.  Father  is  not  dead ;  you 
ought  to  know  better  than  to  talk  about  such  a  thing;  it 
is  bad  taste." 

"Does  that  matter  in  the  simple  life?  I  thought  when 
you  retired  you  were  going  to  dispense  with  falsity  and 
pretences,  and  say  and  do  honestly  what  you  honestly 
thought,  when  it  did  not  hurt  other  people's  feelings." 

"So  I  do,"  she  answered ;  "that  is  why,  when  I  thought 
I  was  alone  just  now,  I  asked  out  loud  how  it  was  that 
father  was  still  alive.  Since  then  I  have  seen." 

"What  have  you  seen?" 

"That  it  is  to  prevent  me  from  making  a  great  muddle 
of  things.  If  he  had  been  dead  I  dare  say  I  should  have 
married  you — I  may  as  well  confess  it  since  you  know — 
and  we  both  should  have  repented  it  ever  after- 
wards. As  it  is,  if  I  were  free  to-morrow,  I  would  know 
better  than  to  do  it." 

He  did  not  seem  much  troubled  by  the  last  statement. 
"We  should  have  had  to  talk  things  over,"  he  said. 

"No,  talking  wouldn't  have  been  any  good,"  she  an- 
swered; "there  is  a  great  distance  between  us." 

He  looked  down  at  the  space  of  red  tiles  that  separated 
them.  "That  is  rather  remediable,"  he  observed. 

"Do  you  think  I  am  not  in  earnest?"  she  said.  "I  am. 
There  is  a  real  barrier;  besides  all  these  things  I  have 
mentioned  there  is  something  else  that  cuts  me  off.  I 
have  a  debt  to  pay  you  and  until  it  is  paid,  if  I  were 
your  own  cousin,  I  could  not  stand  on  the  same  platform." 

"A  debt?"  he  repeated  the  word  in  surprise.  His 
young  cousin's  loan  to  Captain  Polkington  had  slipped  his 
memory,  and  even  if  it  had  not,  its  connection  with  the 


298  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

present  would  not  have  occurred  to  him.  Julia  had  been 
there,  it  is  true,  when  the  affair  was  talked  of  eighteen 
months  ago,  and  he  himself  had  unofficially  paid  the 
money  to  end  the  matter,  but  he  never  dreamed  of  con- 
necting either  her  or  himself  with  it  now.  Still  less  would 
he  have  dreamed  that  she  considered  herself  bound  to 
pay  him  what  her  father  had  borrowed  from  another. 

"What  debt?"  he  asked,  thinking  the  word  must  be 
hyperbolical,  and  meant  to  stand  for  something  quite 
different,  though  he  could  not  imagine  what. 

"You  have  forgotten?"  she  said.  "I  thought  you  had; 
that  only  shows  the  distance  more  plainly;  you  have 
one  standard  for  yourself  and  another  for  me." 

"Tell  me  what  it  is  and  let  us  see  if  we  cannot  com- 
pound it." 

But  she  shook  her  head.  "It  can't  be  compounded,"  she 
said;  "you  will  know  when  I  pay  it." 

"And  when  will  that  be?" 

"Ten  years,  twenty  perhaps,  I  don't  know.  I  thought 
once  or  twice  before  I  could  pay  it — with  the  blue  daffodil 
once,  and  once  when  I  first  got  the  cottage  and  things — 
I  thought,  to  be  sure,  I  could  do  it ;  it  seemed  a  Heaven- 
sent way.  But" — with  a  little  glint  of  self-derision — 
"Heaven  knows  better  than  to  send  those  sort  of  easy 
ways  to  the  Polkingtons;  they  are  ill-conditioned  beasts 
who  only  behave  when  they  are  properly  laden  by  fate, 
and  not  often  then.  Now  you  know  all  about  it,  so  won't 
you  say  good-bye  and  go?" 

"I  don't  know  about  it  and,  what  is  more,  I  don't  care. 
I  am  not  going  to  let  this  unknown  trifle,  this 
scruple " 

Just  then  there  came  the  sound  of  voices  outside ;  Mr. 
Gillat  and  Captain  Polkington  unwarily  coming  back  be- 
fore the  coast  was  clear. 


BEHIND    THE    CHOPPING-BLOCK       299 

"Yes,"  Johnny  was  saying,  "he  came  to  see  me  in 
town,  you  know — or  rather  you,  but  you  were  out " 

"He  came  to  see  me?  He" — there  was  no  mistaking 
the  consternation  in  the  Captain's  tone,  nor  his  mean- 
ing either. 

Julia  and  Rawson-Clew  looked  at  one  another;  both 
had  forgotten  the  Captain's  existence  for  a  moment ;  now 
they  were  reminded,  and  though  the  remainder  seemed 
incongruous  it  was  perhaps  opportune. 

"There  is  father,"  Julia  said. 

And  he  nodded.  One  cannot  make  love  to  a  man's 
daughter  almost  in  his  presence,  when  the  proviso  of 
his  death  is  an  essential  to  any  satisfaction.  Rawson- 
Clew  went  to  the  door.  "Good-bye,"  he  said,  "for  the 
present." 

"Good-bye  for  always,"  she  answered. 

She  spoke  quite  calmly,  in  much  the  same  tone  when, 
on  the  morning  after  the  excursion  to  the  Dunes,  she  had 
bid  him  good-bye  and  tried  to  face  the  consequences 
alone.  She  had  had  so  many  tumbles  with  fate  that  it 
seemed  she  knew  how  to  take  them  now  with  an  indif- 
ferent face.  At  least,  nearly  always,  not  quite — the  wood 
block  still  lay  before  the  corner  in  which  she  had  crouched 
the  marks  on  his  coat  where  her  tears  had  fallen  were 
hardly  dry.  There  was  passion  and  to  spare  behind  the 
indifferent  face,  passion  that  for  once  at  least  had  broken 
through  the  self-mastery. 

He  held  out  his  hand  and  she  put  hers  into  it.  "Good- 
bye," he  repeated ;  "good-bye  for  the  present,  brave  little 
comrade." 


CHAPTER  XIX 

CAPTAIN  POLKINGTON 

CAPTAIN  POLKINGTON  was  watching  a  pan  of  jam.  It 
was  the  middle  of  the  day  and  warm ;  too  warm  to  be  at 
work  out  of  doors,  as  Johnny  was,  at  least  so  the  Cap- 
tain thought.  He  also  thought  it  too  warm  to  watch  jam 
in  the  back  kitchen  and  that  occupation,  though  it  was  the 
cooler  of  the  two,  had  the  further  disadvantage  of  being 
beneath  his  dignity.  The  dignity  was  suffering  a  good 
deal ;  was  it  right,  he  asked  himself,  that  he,  the  man  of 
the  house,  should  have  the  menial  task  of  watching  jam 
while  Julia  talked  business  with  some  one  in  the  par- 
lour? He  did  not  know  what  business  this  person  had 
come  on;  he  had  seen  him  arrive  a  few  minutes  back, 
had  even  heard  his  name — Mr.  Alexander  Cross — but 
that  was  all  he  knew  about  him ;  Julia  had  taken  him  into 
the  parlour  and  shut  the  door.  Naturally  her  father 
felt  it  and  was  annoyed. 

There  was  a  door  leading  into  the  parlour  from  the 
front  kitchen.  It  was  fast  closed  but  the  Captain,  leav- 
ing the  jam  to  attend  to  itself,  went  and  looked  at  it. 
While  he  was  standing  there  he  heard  three  words  spoken 
on  the  other  side  by  the  visitor;  they  were — "your  new 
daffodil." 

So  that  was  the  business  this  man  had  come  on!  He 
was  trying  to  buy  Julia's  ugly  streaked  flower.  The  Cap- 
tain's weak  mouth  set  straight ;  he  felt  very  strongly  about 

300 


CAPTAIN    POLKINGTON  301 

the  daffodil  and  his  daughter's  refusal  to  sell  it.  He  knew 
she  might  have  done  so ;  she  had  had  a  good  many  letters 
about  it  since  it  was  exhibited  in  London.  She  said  little 
about  the  offers  they  contained,  but  he  knew  she  refused 
them  all ;  he  had  taxed  her  with  it  and  argued  the  ques- 
tion to  no  purpose.  Now,  to-day,  it  seemed  there  was  a 
man  so  anxious  to  buy  the  thing  that  he  had  actually 
come  to  see  her ;  and  she,  of  course,  would  refuse  again. 
The  Captain  sat  down  in  the  easy-chair ;  he  was  overcome 
by  the  thought  of  Julia's  contrary  stupidity. 

The  chair  was  near  the  door,  but  he  would  have  scouted 
the  idea  that  he  was  listening;  he  was  a  man  of  honour, 
and  why  should  he  wish  to  hear  Julia  refuse  good  money  ? 
Also  it  was  impossible  to  hear  all  that  was  said  unless 
the  speakers  were  close  to  the  door.  Apparently  they 
must  have  been  near  for  no  sooner  had  she  sat  down 
than  he  heard  the  man  say,  "Haven't  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  you  somewhere  before,  Miss  Snooks?  Your  face 
seems  familiar  though  I  can't  exactly  locate  it." 

"We  met  at  Marbridge,"  Julia  answered ;  "at  a  dance, 
a  year  and  a  half  ago." 

"At  Marbridge?  Oh,  of  course!  Funny  I  shouldn't 
have  remembered  when  I  heard  your  name  the  other 
day!" 

Captain  Polkington  did  not  think  it  at  all  funny ;  he  did 
not  know  who  Mr.  Cross  might  be,  nobody  important 
he  judged  by  his  voice  and  manner — hostesses  at  Mar- 
bridge  often  had  to  import  extra  nondescript  men  for  their 
dances.  But  whoever  he  was,  if  he  had  been  there  once 
he  might  go  there  again  and  carry  with  him  the  tale  of 
Julia's  doings  and  home  and  other  things  detrimental  to 
the  Polkington  pride.  The  Captain  listened  to  hear  one 
of  the  two  in  the  other  room  refer  to  the  change  of 
name  which  had  prevented  an  earlier  recognition.  But 


302  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

neither  did;  she  saw  no  reason  for  it,  and  he  had  for- 
gotten her  original  name  if  he  ever  knew  it. 

"I  remember  all  about  you  now,"  he  was  saying ;  "you 
danced  with  me  several  times  and  asked  me  about  the 
Van  Heigens'  blue  daffodil" — he  paused  as  if  a  new 
idea  had  occurred  to  him.  "You  were  not  in  the  line  then, 
I  suppose?"  he  asked. 

"No,  I  knew  nothing  about  flower  growing  or  selling," 
she  answered.  "What  you  told  me  of  the  value  of  the 
blue  daffodil  was  a  revelation  to  me." 

He  laughed  a  little.  "But  one  you'll  try  to  profit  by," 
he  said. 

The  Captain  moved  in  his  chair.  He  could  have  groan- 
ed aloud  at  the  words,  which  represented  precisely  what 
Julia  would  not  do.  Unfortunately  his  movement  had 
much  the  same  effect  as  his  groan  would  have  done,  some 
one  on  the  other  side  of  the  door  moved  too,  and  in  the 
opposite  direction.  It  must  have  been  Julia,  her  father 
was  sure  of  it;  it  was  like  her  to  do  it;  she  must  have 
gone  almost  to  the  window ;  he  could  not  make  out  what 
was  said.  The  man  was  no  doubt  trying  to  buy  the  bulb ; 
a  stray  word  here  and  there  indicated  that,  but  it  was 
impossible  to  hear  what  offer  was  made.  It  was  equally 
impossible  to  hear  what  Julia  said ;  her  father  only  caught 
the  inflection  of  her  voice,  but  he  was  sure  she  was  re- 
fusing. 

In  disgust  and  anger  he  rose  and,  having  pulled  the 
jam  to  the  side  of  the  fire,  went  into  the  garden.  There 
he  took  the  hoe  and  started  irritably  to  work  on  a  bed 
near  the  front  door;  it  was  some  relief  to  his  feelings 
to  scratch  the  ground  since  he  could  not  scratch  anything 
else. 

In  a  little  while  Cross  came  out.  "Well,  if  you  won't, 
you  won't,"  he  was  saying  as  Julia  opened  the  door.  "I 


CAPTAIN    POLKINGTON  303 

think  you  are  making  a  mistake;  in  fact,  if  you  weren't 
a  lady  I  should  say  you  were  acting  rather  like  a  fool ;  but, 
of  course,  you  must  please  yourself.  If  you  think  bet- 
ter of  it  you  can  always  write  to  me.  Just  name  the 
price,  a  reasonable  price,  that's  all  you  need  do.  We 
understand  one  another,  and  we  can  do  business  without 
any  fuss — you  have  my  address?" 

He  gave  her  a  card  as  he  spoke,  although  she  assured 
him  she  should  not  want  it ;  then  he  took  his  leave. 

She  watched  him  go,  tearing  up  the  card  when  he  had 
set  off  down  the  road.  Captain  Polkington  watcher  her. 

"What  did  he  want?"  he  asked,  remembering  that  he 
was  not  supposed  to  know 

"The  bulb,"  she  answered. 

"And  you  would  not  sell  it  ?" 

"No." 

She  had  come  from  the  doorstep  now  to  pull  up  some 
weeds  he  had  overlooked. 

"I  can't  understand  you,  Julia,  he  said  resting  on  his 
hoe,  and  speaking  as  much  in  sorrow  as  in  anger.  "You 
seem  to  have  so  little  sense  of  honour — women  so  seldom 
have — but  I  should  have  thought  that  you  would  have 
had  a  lesson  on  the  necessity,  the  obligation  of  paying 
debts.  When  you  come  to  think  of  the  efforts  we  are 
making  to  pay  those  debts,  how  I  am  straining  every 
nerve,  giving  almost  the  whole  of  my  income,  doing  with- 
out everything  but  the  barest  necessaries,  without  some 
things  that  are  necessaries  in  my  state  of  health,  what 
your  mother  is  doing,  how  she  has  given  up  her  home, 
her  husband,  to  live  almost  on  charity  in  her  son-in-law's 
house.  When  you  think  of  all  that,  I  say,  and  of  what 
your  sisters  have  done,  it  does  seem  strange  that  you 
should  grudge  this  bulb,  simply  and  solely  because  it  was 
given  you  by  some  people  for  whom  you  care  nothing." 


304  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Julia  agreed ;  she  never  saw  the  purpose  of  contradict- 
ing when  conviction  was  out  of  the  question.  "It  does 
seem  strange,"  she  said;  "but  there  is  one  comfort,  the 
worst  of  the  debts  will  be  cleared  off  by  the  end  of  the 
year.  Uncle  William  knows  that  and  has  arranged  for  it 
in  his  own  mind ;  I  really  think  it  would  be  almost  a  pity 
to  disturb  the  business  plans  of  any  one  so  exact." 

"Are  we,"  the  Captain  returned  scornfully,  "to  pinch 
and  save  to  the  end  of  the  year  ?  Am  I  to  do  without  the 
few  comforts  that  might  make  life  tolerable?  Am  I  to 
work  like  a  farm  labourer  and  live  like  one  till  then,  be- 
cause you  choose  to  keep  this  bulb  ?" 

Julia  thought  it  was  very  probable  things  would  go 
on  as  they  were  for  some  time,  but  she  did  not  say  so; 
she  only  said,  "I  am  sorry  you  find  it  so  trying." 

"Trying !"  her  father  said,  and  stopped,  as  if  he  found 
the  word  and  most  others  very  inadequate.  "After  all,  it 
does  not  much  matter,"  he  remarked  in  a  tone  of  gloomy 
resignation.  "I  shan't  be  here,  in  any  one's  way,  much 
longer;  there  is  not  the  least  chance  that  I  shall  live  till 
the  end  of  the  year,  and  when  I  am  gone  you  can  do 
what  you  please,  what  you  must,  with  your  bulb.  I  own 
I  should  like  to  see  you  a  little  more  comfortable  and 
better  off  now.  I  hate  to  have  you  doing  servant's  work 
and  going  shabby  as  you  have  to.  I  should  like  you  to 
be  decently  dressed,  taking  your  proper  place  in  society, 
but  if  you  think  it  right  to  go  on  as  you  are  and  to  keep 
your  bulb,  of  course  I  have  nothing  to  say." 

It  was  as  well  he  had  nothing,  for  Julia  remembered  the 
jam  and  went  indoors,  so  he  would  have  had  no  one 
to  say  it  to.  She  went  into  the  back  kitchen,  thinking, 
but  not  of  the  jam.  Once  again  the  temptation  to  sell  the 
daffodil  beset  her ;  not  to  Cross,  he  was  the  last  man  to 
whom  she  would  have  sold  it,  but  to  some  collector  who 


CAPTAIN    POLKINGTON  305 

would  care  for  it  as  the  Van  Heigens  would.  She  could 
easily  find  such  a  one  with  or  without  assistance  from 
Cross ;  little  harm  would  be  done  to  the  Van  Heigens  by 
it;  indeed  Joost  had  expected  her  to  do  no  less,  and  if 
she  did  it  she  could  pay — not  the  debts  her  father  had 
mentioned — but  the  one  he  had  not.  She  had  thought 
this  all  out  before,  seen  the  arguments  on  both  sides,  and 
arrived  at  her  conclusion ;  but  there  are  some  things  that 
are  not  content  with  this  treatment  once,  nor  even  twice, 
but  demand  it  a  good  many  more  times  than  that.  So  she 
thought  it  out  again  and  came  again  to  the  old  conclu- 
sion. Joost  had  given  her  the  bulb  because  he  loved  her ; 
he  had  made  no  conditions  because  he  believed  in  her; 
he  had  even  professed  himself  content  that  she  should 
sell  it  because,  in  his  humbleness  and  generosity,  he 
wanted  only  that  she  should  get  what  ease  she  could. 
He  was  content  to  make  what  was  to  him  a  great  sacrifice 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  she  should  have  a  little 
more  money  on  mere  caprice,  the  very  nature  of  which 
he  did  not  know.  And  so  she  could  not  do  it,  that  was  the 
end  of  the  whole  matter.  She  could  not  take  the  gift  of 
the  man  who  loved  her  to  pay  a  debt  to  the  man  she 
loved. 

She  went  to  fetch  jam  pots,  without  calling  herself  to 
order  for  the  last  admission.  It  was  the  one  luxury 
she  had  at  that  time ;  daily  and  nightly  she  could  admit 
to  herself  that  she  loved  him  and  he  loved  her.  Not  ex- 
actly passionately — they  were  not  passionate  people,  she 
told  herself — but  in  an  odd  companionable  equal  sort  of 
way  which  was  the  best  in  the  world.  Nothing  would 
ever  come  of  it,  even  in  the  remote  future  when  her  father 
was  dead  and  the  debt  paid.  By  that  time  both  of  them 
would  have  grown  old  and  set  in  their  far  separate  ways, 
and  even  if  he  ever  heard  that  she  was  free  he  would 


306  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

have  become  wiser  and  changed  his  mind.  So  there  was 
no  end  to  this  thing,  no  awakening  and  disillusioning, 
none  of  the  disappointment  and  dreariness  which  is  likely 
to  attend  the  translating  of  a  dream  into  work-a-day  life. 
For  that  reason  it  should  have  been  possible  to  be  con- 
tent, even  with  the  thing  which  stood  between  her  and 
realisation — sometimes  it  almost  was,  at  least  she  per- 
suaded herself  so.  At  others  there  were  things  harder 
to  control ;  brief  moments  when  crushing  down  all  oppo- 
sition and  obliterating  other  thoughts,  came  the  memory 
of  how  she  had  crouched  behind  the  chopping-block,  how 
hidden  her  tears  in  his  coat.  There  was  no  reason  or 
common-sense  in  that,  no  friendship  or  good-fellowship 
in  the  clasp  of  his  arms ;  it  was  the  natural  man  and  the 
natural  woman,  and  absence  could  not  change  it,  nor  time 
take  it  away ;  it  had  been,  it  might  be  again,  it  obeyed  no 
law  and  answered  to  no  argument  in  the  world.  It  was 
something  which  made  her  ashamed  and  afraid  and  yet 
glad  with  a  rare  incommunical  gladness  that  was  pointed 
with  pain. 

Just  then  the  jam  boiled  over,  and  she  had  to  leave  her 
pots  to  run  and  save  it. 

It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  your  mind  under  fair  con- 
trol; the  Polkington  training,  wherein  the  advisable  and 
advantageous  were  compelled  to  rank  high  even  in  matter 
of  emotion,  is  not  without  use  in  bringing  this  about.  But 
it  is  also  a  great  thing,  almost,  perhaps,  a  more  important 
one  for  some  people,  to  have  plenty  to  do  even  if  it  is 
only  making  jam. 

While  Julia  made  her  jam  Captain  Polkington  hoed; 
at  least  he  did  for  a  little  while,  then  he  gradually  ceased 
and  stood  leaning  upon  his  hoe,  lost  in  unhappy  thought. 
At  last  he  moved,  and,  gathering  the  withering  weeds 
that  lay  beside  the  path,  carried  them  to  an  old  basket 


CAPTAIN     POLKINGTON  307 

which  he  had  left  beside  the  garden  wall.  With  the  weeds 
he  picked  up  the  torn  fragments  of  card  which  Julia  had 
dropped  beside  the  doorstep ;  he  let  them  fall  into  the  bas- 
ket with  the  other  rubbish,  but  when  he  saw  them  gleam- 
ing white  among  the  green  they  arrested  his  attention.  For 
a  moment  he  looked  at  them,  then  he  carefully  picked 
them  out;  he  had  some  thought  of  appealing  to  Julia 
once  more,  or  telling  her  that  he  had  saved  the  man's 
address  for  her  and  she  had  one  last  chance.  He  sat 
down  on  the  wall;  would  it  be  any  good  to  appeal?  he 
asked  himself  despondently.  Would  anything  be  any 
good?  Was  not  everything  a  failure?  No  one  regarded 
him;  Cross,  the  man  whose  card  he  held,  had  not  even 
glanced  in  his  direction  when  he  went  down  the  path.  A 
miserable  bargain-driving  tradesman  had  passed  him  and 
paid  no  more  attention  to  him  than  if  he  had  been  a  gar- 
dener !  Gillat,  his  own  friend,  did  not  regard  him,  thought 
nothing  of  his  comforts ;  he  was  all  for  Julia ;  thought  of 
nothing  and  no  one  else.  As  for  Julia  herself,  she  had  not 
the  slightest  regard  for  him,  no  consideration,  not  even 
filial  respect  and  obedience. 

He  looked  gloomily  before  him  for  a  little,  then  his 
eye  fell  on  the  white  fragments  he  held,  the  address  of 
the  man  who  was  anxious  to  buy  the  daffodil  which  Julia 
in  her  obstinate  folly  and  selfish  unreasonableness,  would 
not  sell.  If  it  only  were  sold !  He  thought  over  all  the 
good  things  that  could  then  be  done ;  they  were  the  same 
as  those  excellent  reasons  that  he  had  himself  given  a 
little  while  back.  Some  people  might  have  said  they  were 
rather  diverse  and  not  all  mutually  inclusive,  but  no  such 
idea  troubled  him ;  he  was  sure  all  could  easily  have  been 
done  if  the  daffodil  were  sold.  He  felt  that  he  could  have 
done  it  all  quite  well,  he  did  not  stop  to  think  how — if  he 
had  had  the  handling  of  the  money  he  could  have  been  a 


308  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

benefactor  to  his  whole  family,  especially  Julia.  It  was 
hard  that  he  should  be  prevented,  bitterly  hard;  it  had 
so  often  happened  in  his  life  that  he  had  been  prevented 
from  doing  what  was  good  and  useful  by  want  of  means 
and  opportunity  or  the  stupid  obstinacy  of  other  people. 
He  grew  more  and  more  depressed  as  he  sat  on  the  wall 
thinking  of  these  things  and  wondering  if  there  were 
many  men  so  useless,  so  unfortunate  and  misunderstood 
as  he. 

This  depression  lasted  all  that  day  and  on  into  the 
next ;  indeed,  for  some  time  longer.  It  lifted  a  little  once 
in  the  course  of  a  week,  but  not  much,  and  soon  settled 
down  again,  making  the  Captain  very  miserable,  disin- 
clined for  work,  and  decidedly  bad  company.  Johnny 
thought  he  was  not  well,  but  Julia  fancied  his  trouble 
had  something  to  do  with  annoyance  and  the  daffodil. 
He  did  not  confide  in  either  of  them,  maintaining  a  proud 
and  gloomy  silence  and  nursing  his  grievance  so  that  it 
grew.  For  days  he  cherished  his  sense  of  injury  and 
wrong,  until  it  became  large  and  took  a  good  hold  upon 
him.  Then,  all  at  once,  for  no  reason  that  one  can  give, 
a  change  came,  and  his  mind,  as  if  smitten  by  a  gust  of 
wind,  began  to  veer  about,  to  stir  and  lighten.  Why,  he 
suddenly  asked  himself,  was  it  that  Julia  would  not  sell 
the  bulb?  Because — the  answer  was  so  absurdly  simple 
he  wondered  it  had  not  occurred  to  him  before — because 
it  was  the  Van  Heigens'  present,  and  one  cannot  sell 
presents.  He  perfectly  understood  the  scruple,  honoured 
it  even ;  but  he  also  saw  quite  plainly  that,  though  it  pre- 
vented her  from  selling  the  daffodil,  it  did  not  stand 
in  the  way  of  its  being  sold.  She  could  not,  of  course, 
authorise  the  sale,  any  more  than  she  could  conduct  it; 
but  that  was  no  reason  why  she  should  not  be  very  pleased 
to  have  it  sold.  Indeed,  not  only  was  this  a  probability, 


CAPTAIN     POLKINGTON  309 

practically  a  certainty,  but  more  than  likely  she  had  had 
some  such  idea  in  her  mind  when  she  spoke  of  the  mat- 
ter to  her  father — in  all  likelihood  she  was  wondering 
now  why  he  had  not  taken  the  hint. 

Thus  Captain  Polkington  reasoned,  seeing  light  at  last 
in  the  dimness  of  the  depression  which  had  possessed  him. 
Quite  how  much  he  really  believed,  or  even  if  he  were 
capable  of  real  reasonable  belief  at  this  stage  of  his 
career,  it  is  not  easy  to  say.  It  is  possible  he  may  have 
thought  he  was  right  for  the  time  being;  his  conscience 
was  capable  of  remarkable  gymnastic  feats  at  times.  It 
is  also  possible  that  he,  like  some  others  of  the  human 
race,  was  not  really  able  to  think  at  all.  Anyhow  the 
depression  that  weighed  upon  him  lifted,  and  he  remem- 
bered with  satisfaction  that  he  had  kept  the  torn  frag- 
ments of  Cross'  card. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  summer  the  hyacinths,  tulips, 
and  finer  narcissus  had  been  taken  out  of  the  ground  and 
put  to  dry.  Julia  hoped  by  this  means  to  get  more  and 
better  flowers  from  them  next  year  than  is  the  case  when 
they  are  left  in  the  earth.  They  took  some  time  to  dry 
and  were  not  really  ready  till  the  summer  was  far  ad- 
vanced; but  that  did  not  matter  to  her,  however  it  may 
have  inconvenienced  her  father ;  she  was  too  busy  to  at- 
tend to  them  earlier.  By  the  middle  of  August  they  were 
ready,  and  she  set  to  cleaning  them  in  her  spare  time 
with  Johnny  to  help  her.  He  was  proud  and  pleased  to 
do  so,  and  did  not  in  the  least  mind  the  extreme  irritation 
of  the  skin  which  befalls  those  who  rub  off  the  old  loose 
husks.  A  place  was  prepared  for  the  bulbs  in  one  of 
the  sheds,  the  wide  shelf  cleared  and  partitions  made  in 
it  by  Mr.  Gillat,  who  also  spent  some  time  in  writing 
labels  for  each  of  the  divisions.  Julia  told  him  this  was 
unnecessary  as  she  knew  by  the  shape  which  were  hya- 


310  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

cinths  and  which  tulips ;  still  he  did  it.  Captain  Polking- 
ton  did  not  offer  any  assistance ;  he  merely  looked  on  with 
indifferent  interest;  the  matter  did  not  seem  to  concsrn 
him. 

But  one  day,  towards  the  end  of  the  month,  but  before 
the  bulbs  were  all  done,  Julia  went  into  the  town. 

Captain  Polkington  saw  her  start ;  then  he  wandered  to 
the  shed  where  Johnny  was  at  work.  For  a  little  he  stood 
watching,  then  he  walked  leisurely  round  the  place  look- 
ing at  this  and  that. 

"You  will  never  be  able  to  tell  which  is  which  of  these 
things,"  he  remarked  at  last. 

Johnny  looked  at  his  somewhat  conspicuous  labels. 
"I've  named  them,  don't  you  see  'Tulips?' 

"But  you  don't  say  what  sort  of  tulips,  which  are  red 
and  which  yellow.  Nor  what  sort  of  narcissus,  which 
are  daffodils  and  which  the  bunchy  things." 

"No,"  Mr.  Gillat  admitted;  "no,  they  got  mixed  in 
the  digging  up;  I  forgot,  and  put  them  all  in  the  bar- 
row together ;  that's  how  it  happened." 

"What?  The  whole  lot?"  the  Captain  inquired.  "The 
streaked  daffodil  and  all?  What  did  Julia  say?" 

"She  said  it  did  not  matter,"  Johnny  told  him ;  "they'll 
be  all  the  more  surprise  to  us  when  they  come  up  next 
year." 

"She  didn't  mind,  not  even  about  the  streaked  daffo- 
dil?" 

"Oh,  that  was  not  there,"  Mr.  Gillat  said,  serenely  un- 
conscious that  the  fate  of  that  bulb  was  the  only  interest. 
"We  have  got  that  by  itself." 

He  showed  a  little  piece  of  shelf  penned  off  from  the 
rest  and  carefully  covered  with  wire  netting  for  fear  of 
rats.  Three  different  shaped  bulbs  were  there  in  a  row. 

"That's  it,"  Johnny  said,  pointing  to  one  of  the  three. 


CAPTAIN    POLKINGTON  311 

"And  that  end  one  is  the  red  tulip  with  the  black  middle ; 
it  is  supposed  to  be  very  good;  and  that  other  is  the 
double  blue  hyacinth  from  down  by  the  gate;  we  are 
going  to  try  it  in  a  pot  in  the  house  next  year  and  have 
it  bloom  early." 

Captain  Polkington  nodded,  but  did  not  show  much 
interest.  "Did  you  put  these  here,  or  did  she  ?"  he  asked. 

"She  did,"  Johnny  answered.  "She  cleans  them  much 
better  than  I  do,  and  we  knew  they  were  choice  ones, 
the  best  one  of  each  kind,  so  she  cleaned  them;  but  I 
made  the  wire  cover." 

The  Captain  did  not  praise  the  ingenuity  of  this  con- 
trivance, which  he  did  not  admire  at  all,  and  soon  after- 
wards he  sauntered  back  to  the  house.  He  was  dozing 
in  the  easy-chair  in  the  front  kitchen  when  Johnny  came 
in  to  change  his  coat  before  setting  out  to  meet  Julia.  He 
did  not  seem  to  have  moved  much  when  Mr.  Gillat  came 
down-stairs  read  to  start. 

"What?"  he  roused  himself  to  say  when  Johnny  an- 
nounced his  destination.  "Oh,  all  right,  you  need  not 
have  waked  me  to  tell  me  that,  it  really  is  of  no  importance 
to  me  if  you  like  to  walk  in  the  blazing  sun."  He  settled 
himself  afresh  in  the  chair,  muttering  something  about 
the  heat,  and  Johnny  went  out,  quietly  closing  the  door 
after  him. 

It  was  an  hour  later  when  Julia  and  the  faithful  Johnny 
came  back,  the  latter  decidedly  hot  although  he  was  carry- 
ing one  of  the  lightest  of  the  parcels.  Captain  Polking- 
ton was  still  in  his  chair ;  he  woke  up  as  they  entered. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "I  must  have  dropped  asleep!"  He 
rose  and  went  to  take  Julia's  parcels.  "Let  me  put  these 
away  for  you,"  he  said  solicitiously ;  "it  is  a  great  deal 
too  hot  for  you  to  be  walking  in  the  sun  and  carrying  all 
these  things." 


3i2  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"Thank  you,"  Julia  answered;  "that's  all  right.  Per- 
haps you  would  not  mind  getting  the  tea,  though ;  if  you 
would  do  that  I  should  be  glad." 

He  did  mind,  but  he  set  about  it,  and  it  was  perhaps 
well  for  him  that  he  did,  as  otherwise  he  might  have  paid 
a  suspicious  number  of  fidgety  attentions  to  Julia.  As 
it  was,  doing  the  menial  work  which  he  always  considered 
beneath  his  dignity,  while  Johnny  sat  still  and  rested,  re- 
stored him  to  his  usual  manner. 

But  the  Captain,  though  he  was  safely  past  the  initial 
difficulty,  did  not  find  the  working  out  of  his  scheme 
altogether  easy.  He  had  the  bulb,  it  is  true,  and  he  was 
safe  from  detection  for  there  was  still  under  the  wire 
cover  a  smooth  yellow-brown  narcissus  root  very  like 
the  first  one ;  but  he  had  got  to  get  rid  of  it.  It  was  not 
very  easy  to  get  a  letter  to  the  post  here  without  remark 
from  Mr.  Gillat.  That,  in  the  circumstances,  would  be 
undesirable  for  it  was  likely  to  arouse  Julia's  suspicions, 
and  if  they  were  roused  she  might  think  it  her  duty  to  in- 
terfere— even  though,  of  course,  she  did  wish  the  bulb 
sold.  Her  father  recognised  that  and,  determining  not  to 
give  her  the  opportunity,  got  his  letter  written  betimes 
and  waited  for  a  chance  to  give  it  to  the  postman  unob- 
served. In  writing  he  had  been  faced  by  one  very  great 
difficulty,  he  had  not  the  least  idea  how  much  to  ask. 
Cross  had  said  "name  a  reasonable  price,"  and  he  must 
name  one,  or  else  it  would  appear  that  he  were  writing 
on  his  own  behalf  not  Julia's ;  but  he  did  not  know  what 
was  reasonable  and  he  had  no  chance  of  finding  out.  A 
new  orchid,  he  had  vaguely  heard,  was  sometimes  worth 
a  hundred  pounds ;  but  it  was  impossible  any  one  should 
pay  so  much  for  a  daffodil,  an  ordinary  garden  flower. 
Julia,  whatever  her  motive,  would  not  have  refused  to  sell 
it  if  it  would  have  fetched  so  much;  he  could  not  con- 


CAPTAIN     POLKINGTON  313 

ceive  of  a  Polkington,  especially  a  poor  one,  turning  her 
back  on  a  hundred  pounds.  For  hours  he  thought  about 
this  and  at  last  decided  to  ask  twenty  pounds.  It  seemed 
more  to  him  now  than  it  would  have  done  a  year  ago,  by 
reason  of  the  small  sums  he  had  handled  lately ;  but  it  was 
a  good  deal  less  than  his  golden  dreams  had  painted  the 
bulb  to  be  worth  in  the  time  when  it  seemed  unattainable, 
and  he  was  paying  debts  and  providing  for  Julia  out  of 
the  proceeds  of  the  imaginary  sale.  Still,  he  finally  de- 
cided to  ask  it  and  wrote  to  that  effect,  and  after  some 
waiting  for  the  opportunity  got  the  letter  posted. 

After  that  there  followed  an  unpleasant  time  or  sus- 
pense, made  the  more  unpleasant  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
to  look  out  for  the  postman  as  he  did  not  want  the  return 
letter  to  fall  into  Julia's  hands.  At  last,  after  a  longer 
time  than  he  expected,  the  reply  came  safely  to  hand. 
This  was  it — 

"SiR, 

"I  am  obliged  to  decline  your  offer  of  the  streaked 
daffodil  bulb,  the  price  you  name  being  absurd.  To  tell 
the 'plain  truth,  I  would  rather  not  do  business  with  you 
in  the  matter;  I  prefer  to  deal  with  principals,  else  in 
these  cases  there  is  little  guarantee  of  good  faith. 
"Yours  faithfully, 

"ALEXANDER  CROSS." 

"P.  S. — If  you  should  fail  to  dispose  of  your  bulb  else- 
where and  it  would  be  a  convenience  to  you,  I  will  give 
you  a  five  pound  note  for  it,  that  is,  if  you  can  guarantee 
it  genuine.  It  is  not,  under  the  circumstances,  worth 
more  to  me. 

"A.   C" 

So  the  Captain  read  and  then  re-read ;  anger,  mortifica- 
tion and  disappointment  preventing  him  from  grasping 


314  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

the  full  meaning  at  first.  Five  pounds,  only  five  pounds ! 
No  wonder  Julia  would  not  sell  her  bulb ;  no  wonder  she 
preferred  to  keep  a  present  that  would  only  fetch  five 
pounds!  What  was  such  a  trifle?  The  Captain  glared 
at  the  letter  as  he  asked  himself  the  question  proudly. 
His  pride  was  badly  wounded.  Cross  had  not  set  him 
right  in  his  mistaken  idea  of  the  daffodil's  value  too 
politely;  at  least  he  thought  not.  Why  should  he,  this 
tradesman,  say  he  preferred  to  deal  with  principals  ?  Did 
he  imagine  that  a  gentleman  would  attempt  to  sell  him 
a  spurious  bulb?  The  Captain's  honour  was  not  of  that 
sort  and  he  felt  outraged.  He  felt  outraged,  too,  almost 
insulted,  at  being  told  that  the  price  was  absurd.  The 
absurd  thing  was  that  he  should  be  expected  to  know 
anything  about  trade  or  trade  prices.  "The  man  can 
have  no  idea  of  my  position,"  he  thought. 

But  there  he  was  not  quite  correct ;  it  was  precisely  be- 
cause he  had  a  suspicion  of  the  position  that  Cross  had 
written  thus.  No  one  with  any  right  to  it  would  offer 
the  true  bulb  for  twenty  pounds ;  either,  so  he  argued,  it 
was  stolen  or  not  genuine ;  which,  he  did  not  know,  the 
odds  were  about  even.  After  making  a  few  inquiries  at 
Marbridge  into  Captain  Polkington's  history  he  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  chance  in  favour  of  the  true  bulb 
was  worth  five  pounds  to  him.  Accordingly  he  offered 
it,  indifferent  as  to  the  result,  but  rather  anticipating  its 
acceptance. 

It  was  accepted.  The  Captain  was  mortified  and  dis- 
appointed, bat  five  pounds  is  five  pounds.  It  even  seems 
a  good  deal  more  when  your  income  is  very  small  and 
the  part  of  it  which  you  handle  yourself  so  much  smaller 
as  to  amount  to  nothing  worth  mentioning.  It  was  Sep- 
tember now,  and  already  the  mornings  and  evenings  were 
cold,  foretaste  of  the  winter  which  was  coming,  which 


CAPTAIN    POLKINGTON  315 

would  hold  the  exposed  land  in  its  grip  for  months.  Five 
pounds  would  buy  things  which  would  make  the  winter 
more  tolerable ;  small  comforts  and  luxuries  meant  a  great 
deal  to  real  poverty  in  cold  weather  and  feeble  health.  Of 
course  to  Johnny  and  Julia  too;  they  were  all  going  to 
benefit.  Captain  Polkington  packed  the  bulb  in  a  small 
box  and  posted  it  when  he  went  to  Halgrave  to  have  his 
hair  cut. 

By  return  he  received  a  five  pound  note — a  convenient 
handy  form  of  money,  easy  to  send,  easy  to  change.  Hal- 
grave  might  not  perhaps  be  able  to  give  change  for  it 
without  inconvenience,  but  Julia  could  get  it  changed  next 
time  she  went  into  town.  That  would  not  be  just  yet, 
but  a  note  will  keep ;  it  would  perhaps  be  better  to  keep 
it  for  the  present.  The  Captain  folded  it  in  his  pocket- 
book  and  kept  it. 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  BENEFACTOR 

IT  was  not  till  October  that  Captain  Polkington  was 
able  to  change  the  five  pound  note.  This  was  really  Julia's 
fault,  she  went  so  seldom  into  the  town;  he  had  once  or 
twice  suggested  her  doing  so  when  she  said  they  wanted 
this  or  that,  but  she  never  took  the  hint,  and  the  note 
was  still  in  his  pocket-book.  At  last,  however,  the  oppor- 
tunity came. 

A  keeper's  wife  with  whom  Julia  had  got  acquainted 
had  promised  her  a  pair  of  lop-eared  rabbits  if  she  could 
come  and  fetch  them.  She  was  not  very  anxious  to  have 
them,  but  Mr.  Gillat  was;  he  said  they  would  be  very 
profitable.  Julia  doubted  this ;  but,  since  he  wanted  them, 
she  said  they  would  have  them,  and  accordingly,  one 
morning,  they  started  together  with  a  basket  for  the  rab- 
bits. They  started  directly  after  breakfast  for  they  had 
to  go  a  long  way  across  the  heath  and  could  not  at  the 
best  be  back  before  two  o'clock.  Captain  Polkington 
watched  them  go,  standing  at  the  cottage  door  until  their 
figures  were  small  on  the  great  expanse  of  heather.  Then 
he  went  in  and,  sitting  down,  wrote  a  hasty  note  to 
Julia ;  it  was  to  the  effect  that  he  had  been  obliged  to  go 
into  town,  but  would  be  back  by  dark  or  soon  after.  It 
read  as  quite  a  casual  communication,  as  if  he  were  in  the 
habit  of  going  into  town  frequently  and  had  much  busi- 
ness to  transact.  The  Captain  was  rather  satisfied  with 

316 


THE    BENEFACTOR  3'7 

it ;  he  felt  he  was  doing  the  straightforward  thing  in  tell- 
ing Julia,  his  whole  proceedings  were  open  and  above 
board.  When  he  came  back  he  should  tell  her  all  about 
the  money,  how  it  had  been  raised  and  how  spent.  She 
should  have  had  the  spending  of  it  herself  if  only  she 
had  gone  to  town  when  he  suggested  it ;  as  it  was,  he  must 
do  it ;  it  was  absurd  to  wait  any  longer ;  the  weather  was 
already  cold;  he  must  go,  and  bring  her  some  pleasant 
surprise  when  he  came  back. 

Satisfied  with  these  reflections  and  feeling  already  the 
glow  of  beneficence,  he  dressed  himself  and  set  out  for 
Halgrave.  He  had  to  walk  to  the  village  and  there  take 
the  carrier's  cart  which  went  into  town  twice  a  week ;  he 
reflected,  while  he  waited  for  the  vehicle,  how  fortunate 
it  was  that  Julia  and  Johnny  had  chosen  to  go  for  the 
rabbits  to-day,  one  of  the  days  when  the  carrier  went 
to  town.  There  were  a  good  many  bundles  going  by  the 
cart,  and  two  other  passengers  who  were  inclined  to  be 
too  familiar  until  somewhat  haughtily  shown  their  proper 
place.  The  Captain  was  a  little  annoyed  by  this ;  and  an- 
noyed, also,  to  find  that  the  carrier  was  not  in  the  habit 
of  starting  on  the  return  journey  till  rather  late,  later  than 
the  note  would  lead  Julia  to  expect  her  father.  But  as 
the  carrier  was  not  one  to  change  his  habits  for  anybody, 
that  could  not  be  helped  and  Captain  Polkington  made  the 
best  of  it.  Julia  was  not  likely  to  be  anxious  about  him, 
he  was  sure ;  and  since  he  was  going  to  tell  her  all  about 
his  doings,  it  might  as  well  be  late  as  early.  By  this  time 
he  had  quite  got  rid  of  any  qualms — if  he  ever  had  them — 
about  the  method  of  getting  and  the  intention  of  spending 
the  note.  He  had  almost  forgotten  that  it  had  not  always 
been  his,  and  was  quite  sure  that  he  was  doing  the  right 
thing — for  others  as  well  as  himself — in  the  difficult  cir- 
cumstances which  seemed  to  beset  him  more  than  the 


318  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

common  run  of  men.  Cheered  by  these  thoughts  he  en- 
dured the  discomforts  of  the  journey  with  moderate  pa- 
tience ;  he  almost  felt  that  he  was  suffering  them  in  a  good 
cause,  for  the  sake  of  Johnny  and  Julia. 

The  town  was  large  and  the  centre  of  a  large  district, 
not  at  all  like  the  retired  gentility  of  Marbridge,  very 
much  bigger  and  busier.  Captain  Polkington,  who  had 
lived  quietly  so  long,  felt  rather  lost  and  bewildered  at 
first  in  the  bustling  intricate  streets ;  there  were  so  many 
people,  especially  among  the  shops,  they  were  always  get- 
ting in  his  way.  He  only  made  one  purchase  before 
lunch ;  he  would  have  plenty  of  time  in  the  afternoon,  he 
thought,  and  would  be  better  able  to  decide  what  to  buy 
when  he  had  seen  things  and  had  a  meal.  The  purchase 
made  before  lunch  was  at  the  wine  merchants,  it  was 
whisky. 

He  lunched  at  the  best  hotel ;  that  and  the  whisky  made 
a  rather  bigger  hole  in  the  five  pound  note  than  one  would 
have  expected.  Still,  as  he  told  himself  the  whisky  really 
was  a  vital  matter  with  winter  coming  on,  a  necessity, 
not  a  luxury,  for  all  of  them — Johnny  would  be  better  for 
a  little— -he  used  to  like  a  glass  in  the  old  days ;  and  Julia 
would  certainly  be  the  better  for  it,  working  as  she  did 
in  the  cold.  It  was  a  medicine  for  them  all,  not  himself 
alone.  The  lunch  was  the  only  personal  extravagance 
and  really,  seeing  what  he  was  doing  for  the  others,  there 
was  no  need  for  him  to  grudge  that  to  himself. 

So  he  lunched  and  then  the  trouble  began.  He  was  not 
clear  quite  how  it  happened ;  at  least,  owing  to  the  con- 
fusion there  always  was  in  his  mind  between  facts  as  they 
were,  as  he  wished  them  to  be,  and  as  they  appeared  in 
retrospect — he  was  never  able  to  explain  it  thoroughly. 
There  were  other  men  lunching  at  the  same  time ;  he  still 
had  the  Polkington  faculty  for  making  friends  and  ac- 


THE    BENEFACTOR  319 

quairitances ;  he  still,  too,  had  the  appearance  and  manner 
of  a  gentleman,  if  of  somewhat  reduced  circumstances. 
He  apparently  made  acquaintances;  exactly  how  many 
and  what  sort  is  not  certain,  the  account  was  very  con- 
fused here.  There  was  a  whisky  and  soda  in  it,  two  whis- 
kies and  sodas,  or  even  three ;  a  cigar,  a  game  of  billiards 
— perhaps  there  was  more  than  one  game,  or  some  other 
game  besides  billiards.  At  all  events  there  must  have  been 
something  more,  for  the  Captain  afterwards  declared  he 
was  ruined  in  less  than  an  hour,  fleeced,  cheated  of  his 
little  all !  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  was  nothing  of  the 
kind,  and  that  the  acquaintances  were  perfectly  honest 
and  honourable  men.  They  would  not  know  he  could 
not  afford  to  lose,  a  true  Polkington  always  set  out  to 
hide  the  reality  of  his  poverty.  And  he  was  not  likely 
to  win,  he  seldom  did,  no  matter  at  what  he  played  or 
with  whom;  he  was  constitutionally  unlucky — or  incap- 
able, which  is  a  truer  name  for  the  same  thing — it  had 
always  been  so,  even  as  far  back  as  the  old  times  in 
India.  That  day  he  lost  at  something,  that  at  least  was 
clear;  then  there  was  more  whisky  and  soda  and  more 
losses,  and  perhaps  more  whisky  again;  and  so  on  until 
late  in  the  afternoon,  he  found  himself  standing,  miser- 
able and  bewildered,  in  the  main  street  of  the  town.  Some 
one  had  brought  him  there,  a  good-natured  young  fellow 
who  thought,  not  that  he  had  spent  all  he  ought,  but  that 
he  had  drunk  all  he  should. 

"Not  used  to  it,  you  know,"  he  had  said  with  good- 
humoured  apology;  "been  rusticating  out  of  the  way  so 
long.  Better  come  out  and  get  a  breath  of  air,  it'll  pull 
you  together." 

And  he  persuaded  him  out,  walked  some  way  down 
the  street  with  him  and  then,  seeing  that  he  seemed  all 
right,  left  him  and  went  to  attend  to  his  own  business. 


320  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

For  a  little  the  Captain  stood  where  he  was,  the  depres- 
sion, begotten  of  whisky  and  his  losses,  growing  upon  him 
in  the  old  overwhelming  way.  No  one  took  any  notice 
of  him ;  passers  by  jostled  against  him,  for  the  pavement 
was  rather  narrow,  but  no  one  paid  any  attention  to  him. 
The  bustle  bewildered  his  weak  head,  and  the  noise  and 
movement  of  the  traffic  in  the  roadway  irritated  him 
unreasonably.  A  youth  ran  into  him  and  he  exploded 
angrily  with  sudden  weak  unrestrained  fury.  Thereat 
the  boy  laughed,  and,  when  he  shouted  and  stamped  his 
foot,  ran  away  saying  something  impudent.  The  Cap- 
tain turned  to  run  after  him  shaking  his  stick ;  but  he  was 
stiff  and  rheumatic  and  weak  on  his  legs,  too,  just  now. 
It  was  no  use  to  try  and  run.  Of  course  it  was  no  use, 
nothing  was  any  use  now,  he  was  a  miserable  failure, 
he  could  not  even  run  after  a  boy;  he  must  bear  every 
one's  taunts;  he  could  almost  have  wept  in  self-pity. 
Then  he  became  aware  that  several  passers  by  were  look- 
ing at  him  curiously,  arrested  by  the  noise  he  had  made. 
Annoyed  and  ashamed  he  turned  his  back  on  them  and 
pretended  to  be  examining  the  goods  in  a  shop  window 
near. 

It  was  a  large  draper's,  rather  a  cheap  one ;  the  better 
shops  were  higher  up  the  street.  In  this  one  the  things 
were  all  priced  and  labelled  plainly;  the  Captain  at  first 
did  not  notice  this  one  way  or  the  other ;  he  simply  looked 
in  to  cover  his  confusion.  But  after  a  little  he  became 
aware  of  what  he  looked  at,  and  it  recalled  to  his  mind 
the  fact  that  he  was  going  to  buy  something  for  Julia.  He 
did  not  quite  know  what,  he  had  had  large  ideas  at  one 
time;  they  had  had  to  be  diminished  once  because  five 
pounds  will  not  do  as  much  as  twenty ;  they  had  to  be  di- 
minished again  because  he  had  been  fleeced  of  so  much 
of  the  five  pounds.  A  wave  of  anger  shook  him  as  he 


THE    BENEFACTOR  32* 

thought  of  that,  but  he  suppressed  it ;  he  felt  that  he  must 
not  give  way,  so  he  looked  steadily  at  the  window.  There 
were  furs  displayed  there,  muffs  and  collarettes  of  skunk 
and  other  animals,  even  the  humble  rabbit  artistically 
treated  to  meet  the  insatiable  female  appetite  for  sable  at 
all  prices.  The  Captain  decided  on  the  best  collarette  dis- 
played and  turned  towards  the  shop  door  feeling  a  little 
better  in  the  glow  of  benevolence  that  returned  to  him  as 
he  thought  of  how  much  he  was  going  to  spend  for  Julia. 
Just  as  he  was  going  in  he  caught  sight  of  a  girl  selling 
violets  in  the  street.  She  was  a  good-looking  impudent 
girl,  and  catching  his  eye  she  pressed  her  wares  on  him 
glibly;  he  hesitated,  smiled — here  was  one  who  treated 
him  as  a  man,  who  considered  it  worth  while.  He  looked 
defiantly  at  the  passers  by — he  was  a  man,  not  an  object 
for  curiosity  or  kindly  contempt.  He  returned  the  girl's 
glance  with  an  ogle  and,  stepping  as  jauntily  as  he  could 
to  the  edge  of  the  pavement,  took  a  bunch  of  flowers  with 
some  suitable  pleasantry.  Half-way  through  his  remark 
he  stopped  dead ;  he  had  felt  in  his  pocket  for  a  penny  and 
found  nothing.  Quickly,  feverishly,  almost  desperately, 
he  felt  in  the  other  pocket ;  there  were  three  coins  there ; 
by  the  size  he  could  tell  that  one  at  least  was  a  penny ;  he 
took  it  out  and  gave  it  to  the  girl ;  he  had  not  the  courage 
to  put  down  the  flowers  and  go  without  them.  Then 
he  turned  away.  A  narrow  passage  ran  down  between 
the  draper's  and  the  next  house ;  fewer  people  went  that 
way  and  in  the  window  there,  common  and  less  expensive 
goods  were  displayed.  The  Captain  went  down  the  foot- 
way and  examined  the  two  remaining  coins.  They  were 
a  shilling  and  a  penny. 

People  passed  and  repassed  along  the  main  road ;  carts 
and  carriages  rumbled  over  the  uneven  stones;  no  one 
heeded  the  shabby  hopeless  figure  by  the  side  window. 


322  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

They  were  lighting  up  in  the  draper's  though  outside 
there  was  still  daylight ;  the  gas  jets  were  considered  to 
make  the  place  look  more  attractive.  They  shone  warmly 
on  the  furs  and  silk  scarves  in  the  front  window,  making 
them  look  rich  and  luxurious.  Two  girls  stopped  to  look 
in;  then,  their  means  being  more  suitable  to  the  goods 
there,  they  came  to  examine  the  side  window.  They  were 
two  servants  out  for  the  afternoon;  they  wore  winter 
coats  open  over  summer  dresses  and  hats  that  might  be 
called  autumnal,  seeing  that  they  were  an  ingenious  blend- 
ing of  the  best  that  was  left  from  the  headgear  of  both 
seasons. 

"I  shall  get  one  of  them  woolly  neck  things,  I  shall," 
one  said;  "they're  quite  as  nice  as  fur  and  not  so  dear." 

The  other  could  not  agree.  "Don't  care  about  them 
myself,"  she  said ;  "I  must  say  I  like  a  bit  of  sable." 

"Can't  get  it  under  two  and  eleven,"  her  companion  re- 
joined ;  "and  those  things  are  only  a  shilling  three.  Look 
at  that  pink  one  there ;  it  looks  quite  as  good  as  feathers 
any  day.  I'm  not  so  gone  on  sable  myself;  you  can't  have 
it  pink,  and  pink's  my  colour." 

They  moved  on  to  another  window ;  they,  no  more  than 
the  passers  by,  noticed  the  old  man  who  stood  just  at  their 
elbow.  When  they  had  gone  he  looked  drearily  in  where 
they  had  looked.  There  were  the  woolly  things  they 
had  spoken  of,  short  woven  strips  of  loopy  wool,  to  be 
tied  about  the  neck  by  the  two-inch  ribbons  that  dangled 
from  the  ends.  "Ostrich  wool  boas  in  all  colours,  price, 
one  shilling  and  three  farthings,"  they  were  ticketed.  He 
read  the  ticket  mechanically.  He  still  held  his  two  coins ; 
he  held  them  mechanically;  had  he  thought  about  it  he 
would  scracely  have  troubled  to  do  so,  they  were  so 
cruelly,  so  mockingly  inadequate.  He  read  the  ticket 
again ;  it  obtruded  itself  upon  him  as  trivial  things  do  at 


THE    BENEFACTOR  323 

unexpected  times.  But  now  its  meaning  began  to  be  im- 
pressed upon  his  brain — "one  shilling  and  three  farth- 
ings"— that,  then,  was  the  interpretation  of  the  servant 
girl's  "shilling  three."  He  had  a  shilling  and  a  penny — a 
shilling  and  three  farthings.  He  could  buy  one  of  those 
ostrich  wool  boas — he  would  buy  it — that  pink  one  for 
Julia. 

The  Halgrave  carrier  made  it  a  rule  to  receive  his 
passengers'  fares  at  the  begining  of  the  expedition;  if 
they  were  coming  back  as  well  as  going  with  him  they 
paid  for  the  double  journey  at  the  outset  in  the  morning. 
Captain  Polkington  had  so  paid,  and  it  was  that  fact, 
coupled  with  the  early  arrival  at  the  stables  of  his  one 
purchase,  which  induced  the  carrier  to  wait  nearly  half- 
an-hour  for  him.  The  cart  was  packed,  everything  was 
ready,  and  the  good  man  and  the  only  other  passenger 
he  was  taking  back  were  growing  impatient,  when  the 
Captain,  carrying  a  small  crushed  paper  parcel,  appeared. 
He  had  lost  his  way  to  the  stables  and  had  wandered 
hopelessly  in  his  efforts  to  find  it.  The  carrier  was  rather 
short-tempered  about  it,  and  the  other  passenger  said 
something  to  the  effect  that  "They  didn't  oughter  let  him 
out  alone !"  The  Captain  payed  no  attention  but  climbed 
into  the  back  of  the  cart  and  sat  down  near  his  whisky. 
The  other  passenger  got  up  beside  the  driver,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  they  were  lumbering  down  the  crooked  streets. 
Soon  they  were  out  of  the  town  and  jogging  quietly  along 
the  quiet  lanes ;  the  driver  leaned  forward  to  get  a  light 
from  his  passenger's  pipe ;  his  face  for  a  moment  showed 
ruddy  in  the  glow  of  the  one  lamp,  then  it  sunk  into 
gloom  again.  Captain  Polkington  did  not  notice;  he 
did  not  notice  the  voices  in  intermittent  talk,  or  the  fume 
of  their  tobacco  that  hung  on  the  moist  air  and  mingled 


324  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

with  the  scent  of  the  drooping  violets  in  his  coat.  He 
knew  nothing  and  was  aware  of  nothing  except  that  he 
was  the  most  miserable,  the  most  unfortunate  of  men. 
Throughout  the  whole  interminable  journey  he  dwelt  on 
that  one  thing  as  he  sat  by  his  whisky  in  the  dark,  clutch- 
ing tightly  the  soft  paper  parcel  and  finding  his  only  frag- 
ment of  comfort  in  it.  He  had  after  all  bought  some- 
thing ;  poor,  disappointed,  fleeced  as  he  was,  he  had  spent 
his  last  money  in  buying  a  present  for  his  daughter. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD   COMRADE 

THE  cottage  was  very  quiet.  Although  it  was  not 
late,  both  Captain  Polkington  and  Johnny  had  gone  to 
bed,  the  one  to  suit  himself,  the  other  to  oblige  Julia ;  she 
was  in  the  kitchen  now,  as  completely  alone  as  she  could 
wish.  And  certainly  she  did  wish  it ;  by  the  hard  light  in 
here  eyes  and  the  grim  look  about  her  mouth  it  was  clear 
she  was  in  no  mood  for  company.  She  had  got  at  the 
truth  that  evening,  or  most  of  it;  the  whole  affair,  with 
the  exception  of  one  point  only,  was  quite  plain  to  her; 
not  by  her  father's  wish  or  intention,  but  plain  none  the 
less.  Subterfuge  was  an  art  the  Polkingtons  understood 
so  well  that  it  was  exceedingly  difficult  to  deceive  them ; 
Julia  was  the  most  difficult  of  them  all  to  deceive,  and 
the  Captain  was  least  clever  at  subterfuge;  it  was  not 
wonderful,  therefore,  that  she  knew  nearly  all  there  was 
to  know.  Her  heart  was  bitter  within  her,  but  against 
herself  as  well  as  against  her  father — after  all  he  had 
but  done  what  she  had  once  thought  to  do.  She  had 
stayed  her  hand  because  the  one  who  owned  the  daffodil 
was  a  child  to  her.  Her  father  had  had  no  such  reason 
for  staying  his ;  the  one  who  owned  this  daffodil  was  as 
cunning  as  he.  He  had  done  what  he  had,  badly  of  course 
he  could  not  do  otherwise — a  foredained  failure  such  as 
he — bungled  it  hopelessly ;  but  the  idea  was  the  same — a 
bad  travesty  of  a  bad  idea,  badly  worked  out.  For  a 

325 


326  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

moment  her  mind  glanced  aside  from  the  main  issue  in 
disgust  and  contempt  for  the  method.  It  was  sin  without 
genius,  a  puerile  theft  without  adequate  return,  a  miser- 
able fall,  and  for  such  a  purpose !  To  expect  to  find  the 
streaked  daffodil  unguarded  in  an  outhouse!  To  sell  it 
for  five  pounds  and  think  to  spend  the  money  on  creature 
comforts !  It  is  hard  to  say  which  of  the  three  was  the 
worst.  The  really  good  have  little  idea  how  such  fool's 
knavery  looks  to  the  shadily  clever;  it  brings  home  to 
them  the  wrongness  of  wrong,  disgusting  them  with  it 
and  with  themselves,  as  no  preaching  in  the  world  can. 

The  moon  had  risen  by  this  time ;  its  first  beams  shone 
in  at  the  unshuttered  window.  Julia  went  to  the  door  and, 
opening  it,  looked  out.  There  was  a  little  mist  about 
and  the  moon,  quite  a  young  one,  was  struggling  through 
it,  shining  with  a  soft,  diffused  light  that  made  the  land- 
scape very  unearthly. 

It  was  wonderfully  still  out  of  doors,  quiet  and  damp 
with  belts  of  unexplained  shadow  here  and  there,  and 
a  sense  of  illimitable  space  and  silence.  Julia  sat  down 
on  the  door  steps  and  smelt  the  good  smell  of  the  earth 
and  felt  the  nearness  of  it.  But  it  did  not  comfort  her ; 
she  was  not  in  tune  with  the  night ;  she  had  neither  part 
nor  lot  with  these  things.  "Thief,  and  daughter  of  a 
thief;"  the  words  kept  coming  to  her — and  he,  the  man 
whom  she  never  named  to  herself,  had  called  her  his  good 
comrade !  She  bowed  her  face  to  her  knees  and  sat  mo- 
tionless. 

She  had  told  him  the  truth  about  herself;  she  had  not 
been  ashamed ;  she  would  not  have  been  even  if  she  had 
taken  the  daffodil.  But  her  father!  She  was  ashamed 
for  him  with  a  bitter  shame ;  ashamed  of  herself  and  him 
too,  in  thought  and  intention  at  least  they  were  one, 
double-dealers,  "Two  grubby  little  people,"  as  she  had 


THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD  COMRADE    327 

seen  them  long  ago  when  they  first  stood  in  company  with 
that  man. 

"But  you  don't  know ;  you  have  not  our  temptations." 
She  almost  spoke  aloud,  unconsciously  addressing  the 
dewy  silence  as  her  mind  called  the  man  plainly  before 
her.  "You  have  never  wanted  money  as  I  wanted  it,  or 
wanted  things  as  father  wanted  them.  Oh,  you  would 
despise  the  things  he  wanted — so  do  I;  they  are  misera- 
able  and  mean  and  sordid ;  you  couldn't  want  whisky  and 
comfort  as  he  wanted  them,  but  you  can't  think  how  he 
did!  He  would  have  justified  it  to  himself  too;  you 
wouldn't,  couldn't  do  that,  while  we — we  could  justify 
the  devil  if  we  tried.  It  is  not  right,  any  the  more  for 
that,  I  know  it  is  not;  it  is  dishonest  and  disgraceful,  I 
know  that  as  well  as  you ;  but  I  know  how  it  came  about 
and  you — you  can  never  understand!  Her  voice  sank 
away.  That  was  the  great  difference  between  herself  and 
this  man;  it  did  not  lie  in  what  she  did;  that  was  a 
remedial  matter — but  rather  in  what  she  knew  and  felt. 
Things  that  did  not  exist  for  him  were  not  only  possible 
but  sometimes  almost  necessary  to  her  and  hers.  The 
gulf  between  them  which  had  almost  seemed  bridged  in 
the  early  summer  was  suddenly  opened  again  by  the  day's 
work;  opened  beyond  all  passage  for  her — thief,  and 
daughter  of  a  thief. 

She  sat  on  the  doorstone  looking  out  with  unseeing  eyes 
while  the  moon  rose  higher  and  the  light  grew  so  that 
the  belts  of  shadow  melted  and  the  misty  land  was  all 
silver,  a  world  of  dreams,  very  pure  and  still.  But  neither 
her  dreams  nor  her  thoughts  were  pure  and  still;  they 
were  full  of  passion  and  pain,  longing  and  regret  and 
shame,  and  yet  an  underlying  hopeless  desire  that  all 
could  be  known  and  understood. 

At  last  she  rose  and  went  in.    The  pink  woolly  thing 


328  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Captain  Polkington  had  bought  her  lay  on  the  kitchen- 
table,  half  out  of  its  paper  wrappings,  a  silly,  useless 
thing.  As  her  eyes  fell  on  it  they  grew  dim  and  hot 
while  the  colour  crept  up  in  her  cheek.  Her  father  had 
bought  it  for  her ;  he  had  thought  to  please  her  with  the 
foolish  thing;  it  was  like  a  child's  or  a  fool's  gift;  she 
hated  herself  for  hating  it.  But  he  had  deceived  himself 
into  thinking  he  was  generous  to  make  it  with  his  illgotten 
gains;  he  had  salved  conscience  with  it — it  was  a  liar's 
gift,  a  self-deceiver's,  a  thief's.  There  was  no  kindness, 
no  generosity  in  it,  and  she  despised  him — and  he  was 
her  father ! 

She  picked  up  the  thing,  paper  and  all,  and  crammed 
it  into  the  dying  fire.  Then  suddenly  she  burst  into 
tears.  The  world  was  all  wrong,  justice  was  wrong  and 
suffering  was  wrong  and  mankind  wrong,  all  was  wrong 
and  inexplicable  and  pitiful  too. 

For  a  minute  she  sobbed  chokingly,  then  she  forced 
back  the  tears  with  the  angry  impatience  of  a  hurt  ani- 
mal, and  fetching  a  sheet  of  paper  and  pencil,  sat  down 
to  write.  He  was  her  father  and  he  was  a  man  with  a 
warped  idea  of  honour,  one  whose  self-respect  had  been 
taken  away ;  it  was  too  late  to  teach  him,  one  could  only 
safeguard  him  now.  Opportunity  did  not  make  thieves  of 
such  as  her,  but  it  did  of  such  as  him,  and  she  had  left  the 
opportunity — or  what  he  took  to  be  it — open.  She  would 
close  it  now  for  ever;  she  would  be  rid  of  the  bulb,  the 
cause  of  so  much  trouble.  So  she  wrote  hurriedly,  a 
mere  scrawl,  while  the  passion  was  still  upon  her,  and 
her  eyes  were  still  dim  with  tears — 

"Joost,  if  you  have  ever  cared  for  me,  take  back  the 
daffodil ;  take  it  back  and  don't  ask  me  why." 

The  next  morning  Julia  posted  a  small  parcel,  and 


THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD  COMRADE    329 

at  dinner  time  told  Johnny  and  her  father  that  she  had 
sent  the  famous  daffodil  back  to  its  native  land. 

Johnny  looked  up  in  mild  surprise ;  he  had  been  to  the 
outhouse  that  morning  to  see  if  the  bulbs  were  keeping 
dry.  "Why,"  he  said,  "it's  in  the  shed !" 

"No,  it  is  not,"  Julia  answered,  "and  it  never  was.  The 
one  you  think  it  is  one  of  the  large  double  pale  ones;  I 
told  you  at  the  time  we  put  them  away,  but  you  have  got 
mixed,  I  expect." 

"Ah,  yes,  of  course,"  Mr.  Gillat  said;  "I  remember 
now;  of  course,  I  remember." 

The  Captain  swallowed  something,  but  contrived  to 
keep  quiet,  and  only  darted  a  glance  at  Johnny,  the  mud- 
dler, whose  information  could  never  be  depended  on. 

When  the  meal  was  over  and  Mr.  Gillat  in  the  back 
kitchen,  Captain  Polkington  spoke  to  his  daughter. 

"Julia,"  he  said,  moistening  his  dry  lips,  "that  man 
Cross  thought  it  was  the  streaked  daffodil  that  I, 
that " 

His  voice  tailed  away,  but  Julia  only  said,  "Well?" 

"I  pledged  by  word  of  honour  that  it  was  the  true 
one." 

Again  Julia  said,  "Well  ?" 

"What  is  to  be  done?"  the  Captain  asked. 

She  showed  no  signs  of  grasping  his  meaning  or  at 
all  events  of  helping  him  out.  He  burst  out  irritably, 
"What  on  earth  have  you  sold  it  for?  Nothing  would 
induce  you  to  do  so  before  when  I  asked  you  to ;  now,  all 
at  once  you  have  taken  a  freak  and  parted  with  it  with- 
out any  consideration  whatever.  I  never  saw  anything 
like  women,  so  utterly  irrational !" 

"I  have  not  sold  it,"  Julia  told  him;  "only  sent  it 
away." 


330  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

"What  for?  It  is  perfectly  absurd!  I  suppose  you  can 
get  it  back?  You  must  get  it  back." 

Julia  asked  "What  for?"  in  her  turn. 

The  Captain  enlightened  her.  "There  is  Cross,"  he 
said;  "I  told  him  that  was  the  daffodil,  and  it  is  not. 
Something  must  be  done;  we  can't  cheat  him;  we  must 
send  him  the  daffodil,  or  else  refund  the  five  pounds.  We 
should  have  to  do  that — and  we  can't." 

"No,"  Julia  agreed  grimly;  "and  we  would  not  if  we 
could." 

"But  what  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  her  father  asked. 

"Nothing." 

"Nothing!  But  I  pledged  my  word!  You  don't  un- 
derstand, I  am  in  honour  bound." 

Julia  forbore  to  make  and  comment  on  her  father's 
notion  of  honour ;  indeed,  it  struck  her  as  almost  pathetic 
in  its  grotesqueness  and  certainly  very  characteristic  of 
the  Polkingtons. 

"Cross  paid  five  pounds  for  the  streaked  daffodil,"  the 
Captain  went  on  to  say,  believing  that  he  was  stating  the 
case  with  incontrovertible  plainness,  "and  if  he  does  not 
have  the  true  bulb  he  must  have  the  money  back ;  other- 
wise he  will,  with  justice,  say  he  has  been  cheated,  for  I 
guaranteed  the  thing." 

"He  paid  five  pounds  for  a  speculation,"  Julia  said; 
"your  guarantee  was  nothing,  and  though  he  may  have 
asked  for  it,  it  was  just  a  form  and  did  not  count  one 
way  or  the  other.  He  knew  there  was  a  chance  that  you 
had  come  by  the  true  bulb  somehow  and  so  had  it  to  sell ; 
he  risked  five  pounds  on  that — and  lost  it." 

Captain  Polkington  looked  bewildered.  "He  paid  five 
pounds  for  the  bulb,"  he  persisted ;  "he  said  it  was  worth 
no  more  to  him." 

"Very  likely  not,  if  he  could  get  it  for  that,"  Julia 


THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD  COMRADE    331 

said;  "but  if  he  could  have  been  sure  of  it,  it  would 
have  been  worth  two  hundred  pounds." 

"Two  hundred!"  Captain  Polkington  gasped,  turning 
rather  white. 

Julia  nodded.  "With  my  guarantee,"  she  said.  "You 
had  not  got  that ;  I  suppose  you  let  him  see  it  when  you 
wrote  first  so  he  knew  that,  though  you  might  have  the 
real  bulb,  you  were  not  in  a  position  to  sell  it  well." 

The  Captain  flushed  as  suddenly  as  he  had  paled.  "You 
think  he  thought  I  had  not  come  by  it  honestly,  that  I 
had  no  right  in  my  daughter's  affairs  ?" 

"I  don't  see  it  matters  what  he  thought,"  Julia  an- 
swered, taking  up  the  dishes.  "He  risked  his  money,  and 
lost  it,  knowing  very  well  what  he  did ;  he  does  not  mind 
doing  business  in  that  way ;  I  don't  admire  it  myself,  but 
I  guessed  he  would  do  it  when  I  first  made  his  acquaint- 
ance." 

"You "  the  Captain  said. 

"I  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,  and  shall  have  nothing." 

"But  the  money  must  be  paid;  it  is  a  debt  of  honour; 
I  must  clear  myself." 

Julia  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"You  do  not  wish  me  cleared?"  her  father  demanded 
haughtily. 

"Paying  the  five  pounds  would  not  clear  you,"  she  said ; 
neither  that  nor  anything  else.  No,  I  am  not  going  to  pay 
it ;  I  don't  feel  any  obligation  in  the  matter.  If  Mr.  Cross 
goes  in  for  those  sort  of  dealings  he  must  put  up  with 
the  consequence,  and  I  am  afraid  you  must,  too."  And 
with  that  she  went  away. 

This  was  the  last  reference  that  was  made  to  the  sale 
of  the  daffodil  and  the  expedition  to  town ;  after  that  the 
matter  was  left  out  of  conversation  and  Julia  behaved 
as  if  it  had  never  existed.  But  Captain  Polkington  was 


332  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

very  unhappy;  he  could  not  get  over  the  affair  and  his 
own  failure;  he  brooded  over  it  in  silence,  feeling  and 
resenting  that  he  could  not  speak  to  either  Johnny  or 
Julia,  they  being  quite  unable  to  understand  his  emotions. 
Once  or  twice  he  raged  weakly  against  Cross,  who  had 
given  him  five  pounds  when  he  had  asked  twenty  for  a 
thing  worth  two  hundred;  who  had  doubted  his  word, 
who  had  behaved  as  if  he  were  a  common  thief — who 
would,  doubtless,  think  him  one.  More  often  his  indig- 
nation burnt  up  against  Julia  who  would  do  nothing  to 
remedy  this  last  catastrophe,  and  clear  him  and  reinstate 
his  honour  in  the  eyes  of  this  man  and  himself.  Most 
often  of  all  his  quarrel  was  with  fate,  and  then  his  anger 
broke  down  into  self-pity  as  he  thought  of  all  the  troubles 
that  were  crowding  about  his  later  years ;  of  his  lost  repu- 
tation, his  lack  of  sympathy  and  comprehension ;  the  fail- 
ure of  all  his  plans  and  hopes,  the  poverty  and  feeble 
health  that  oppressed  him.  In  these  gloomy  days  he  had 
one  ray  of  comfort  only;  it  lay  in  the  purchase  he  had 
made  on  that  day  that  he  went  shopping.  That  whisky 
was  the  solitary  thing  in  the  day's  adventure  about 
which  Julia  had  not  heard ;  everything  else  she  had  been 
told,  but  somehow  that  had  escaped.  One  reason  of  this, 
no  doubt,  lay  in  the  fact  that  Captain  Polkington  had 
not  brought  his  purchase  home  with  him  that  evening. 
He  had  meant  to ;  when  the  carrier  set  him  and  his  prop- 
erty down  just  outside  Halgrave,  he  had  fully  meant  to 
carry  it  to  the  cottage.  But  he  found  it  so  heavy  and 
cumbersome  in  his  weak  and  dejected  state  that  he  had  to 
give  it  up.  So  he  found  a  suitable  hiding-place  in  the 
deep  overgrown  ditch  beside  the  road,  and,  thrusting  it 
as  much  out  of  sight  as  he  could,  left  it  there  and  went 
home  unburdened.  He  meant  to  tell  Julia  and  Johnny 
about  it,  they  of  course  were  to  have  shared,  and  one  or 


THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD  COMRADE    333 

both  of  them  would  go  with  him  to  fetch  it  home  in  the 
morning.  But  he  did  not  tell  them ;  it  did  not  seem  suit- 
able at  first;  they,  each  in  a  different  way,  were  too  un- 
sympathetic about  the  expedition  to  town ;  he  determined 
to  wait  for  a  fitting  opportunity.  The  opportunity  did 
not  come;  but  in  course  of  time  the  whisky  was  moved 
and  gave  comfort  of  sorts  during  the  autumn  days  to  the 
Captain's  drooping  spirits,  if  it  had  a  less  beneficial  ef- 
fect on  his  failing  health. 

In  the  meantime  the  daffodil,  "The  Good  Comrade," 
had  gone  back  to  its  native  land,  and  with  it  an  appeal, 
written  in  English,  badly  written,  scrawled  almost — but 
not  likely  to  be  refused.  Joost  read  it  through  once, 
twice,  more  times  than  that ;  it  said  little,  only,  take  back 
the  bulb  and  ask  no  questions,  yet  he  felt  he  had  been 
honoured  by  Julia's  confidence.  The  very  style  and 
haste  of  the  letter  seemed  an  honour  to  him;  it  showed 
him  she  had  need  and  had  turned  to  him  in  it.  Of  course 
he  would  do  as  she  asked ;  he  would  have  done  things  far 
harder  than  that.  He  folded  the  slip  of  paper  and  put  it 
away  where  he  kept  some  few  treasures,  and  for  a  time 
he  put  with  it  the  bulb  she  had  sent ;  and  sometimes  when 
he  went  to  bed  of  a  night — he  had  no  other  free  time — 
he  took  both  out  and  looked  at  them. 

But  "The  Good  Comrade"  did  not  remain  locked  away 
from  the  light  of  day.  Joost  was  a  sentimentalist,  it  is 
true,  and  the  bulb  had  come  from  Julia,  winged  by  an 
appeal  from  her.  But  he  was  also  a  bulb  grower,  and 
he  was  that  before  he  was  anything  else  and  afterwards 
too,  and  the  daffodil  was  a  marvel  of  nature,  a  novelty,  a 
thing  beyond  words  to  a  connoisseur.  The  lover  asked 
that  the  token  should  be  kept  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  men ; 
but  the  grower  cried  that  the  flower  should  be  given  to 
the  light  of  heaven  and  should  grow  and  bloom  accord- 


334  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

ing  to  Nature's  plan.  For  days  the  lover  was  uppermost 
and  the  old  pain  back.  But  in  time  the  bitter-sweet  mad- 
ness died  down  again  and,  in  the  atmosphere  which  was 
saturated  with  the  beloved  work,  the  old  love,  the  first 
and  last  and  soundly  abiding  one,  reasserted  itself.  The 
daffodil  must  bloom,  the  little  brown  bulb  must  go  back 
to  the  brown  earth,  the  strange  flower  must  unfold  itself 
to  the  sun  and  wind  and  rain. 

So  he  went  to  his  father.  "My  father,"  he  said,  and  it 
is  to  be  feared  he  had  learnt  something  of  guile  from  the 
source  of  his  bitter-sweet  madness.  "My  father,  I  have 
heard  from  Miss  Julia;  she  would  wish  us  to  have  the 
narcissus  "The  Good  Comrade.'  " 

Mijnheer  was  pleased.  "That  is  as  it  should  be,"  he 
said;  he  had  felt  strongly  about  the  gift  of  the  bulb  in 
the  first  instance,  but  that  was  an  affair  over  and  done 
with  long  ago  between  him  and  his  son.  He  did  not  re- 
open it  now,  he  was  only  gratified  to  think  there  was  a 
likelihood  of  the  daffodil  coming  back  to  its  birthplace, 
where  it  certainly  ought  to  be.  "How  much  does  Miss 
Julia  ask  for  it?"  he  inquired. 

"Nothing,"  Joost  answered ;  "she  does  not  wish  to  sell 
it;  she  wishes  to  give  it  back." 

"But,  but!"  Mijnheer  exclaimed,  pushing  up  his  spec- 
tacles in  astonishment;  he  knew  the  value  of  the  thing 
and  the  offers  that  must  have  been  made  for  it ;  this  way 
was  not  at  all  his  notion  of  doing  business ;  also  he  found 
it  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  Julia  he  remembered.  He 
recollected  talk  he  had  had  with  her  when  she  had  proved 
herself  an  apt  pupil  in  trade  and  trade  dealings,  and 
shown,  not  only  a  very  good  comprehension  of  such 
things,  but  also  an  eye  to  the  main  chance.  "This  is  non- 
sense," he  said ;  "it  is  not  business." 

Joost  looked  distressed.  "I  gave  her  the  bulb,"  he  ven- 
tured ;  "she  does  not  want  to  sell  me  back  my  present." 


THE  GOING  OF  THE  GOOD  COMRADE    335 

Mijnheer  did  not  recognise  any  such  distinction  in 
business  transactions,  and  for  a  little  it  looked  as  if  "The 
Good  Comrade"  would  be  sent  wandering  again,  sacri- 
ficed to  his  old-fashioned  notions  of  integrity.  Joost 
should  not  have  it  unless  he  paid  for  it,  he  said  so  with 
decision.  He  himself  would  buy  it  if  Joost  would  not, 
and  if  she  would  not  sell  it  to  him  then  neither  of  them 
should  have  it. 

And  Joost  could  not,  even  if  he  would,  explain  why  and 
how  the  paying  was  so  difficult.  He  used  all  the  argu- 
ments he  could;  indeed,  for  one  of  his  nature,  he  spoke 
with  considerable  diplomacy. 

"Supposing,"  he  said  at  last,  "that  it  was  only  a  sport, 
and  that  next  year  it  reverts  and  is  blue  as  are  the  others, 
the  parent  bulbs?  Miss  Julia  thinks  of  that — she  would 
not  like  to  be  paid  for  it  now  in  case  of  such  a  thing,  will 
you  not  at  least  wait  until  the  spring?  She  has  given 
nothing  for  it  herself ;  it  is  not  as  if  she  had  sunk  money 
and  wants  an  immediate  return." 

Mijnheer  did  not  consider  that  made  any  difference  and 
he  said  so,  reading  his  son  a  lecture  on  business  morality 
according  to  his  standard,  of  a  very  severe  order.  Joost 
listened  with  meekness  to  the  entirely  undeserved  reproof 
for  meanness  and  dishonourable  views ;  then  the  old  man 
announced  finally  what  he  should  do.  He  should  write 
to  Julia  and  offer  her  a  smallish  sum  down  in  case  the 
bulb  proved  to  be  of  no  great  worth,  and  a  promise  of 
a  proportional  percentage  afterwards  if  it  proved  valua- 
ble. This  idea  pleased  him  very  well ;  it  satisfied  his  no- 
tions of  integrity  and  fair  dealing  and  also  his  thrifty 
soul,  which  found  trying  the  otherwise  unavoidable  duty 
of  paying  a  long  price  for  what  had  been  freely  given. 
From  this  Joost  could  not  move  him,  so  there  was  noth- 
ing for  him  to  do  but  write  distressfully  to  Julia  and  ex- 
plain and  apologise.  <- 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE 

JULIA  was  at  work  in  the  kitchen;  it  was  ten  o'clock 
on  a  November  morning  and  she  was  busy ;  Captain  Polk- 
ington  had  had  breakfast  up-stairs,  he  often  did  now,  and 
it  delayed  the  morning's  work.  Mr.  Gillat  brought  in 
two  letters  which  the  postman  had  left;  both  were  for 
Julia,  but  she  had  not  time  to  read  them  now,  so  she 
put  them  down  on  the  table;  they  would  keep;  she  did 
not  feel  greatly  interested  to  know  what  was  inside  them. 
Things  did  not  interest  her  as  they  used;  in  some  im- 
perceptible way  she  had  aged ;  some  of  the  elasticity  and 
youth  was  gone,  perhaps  because  hope  was  gone.  It  had 
been  dying  all  the  summer,  ever  since  the  day  when  she 
crouched  behind  the  chopping-block ;  but  gently  and 
gradually,  as  the  year  dies,  with  some  beauties  unknown 
in  early  days  and  little  recurrent  spurts  of  hope  and  youth, 
like  the  flowers  that  bloom  into  winter's  lap.  But  it  was 
dead  now;  there  had  come  to  her,  as  it  were,  a  sudden 
frost,  and,  as  befalls  in  the  years,  too,  the  late  blooming 
flowers,  the  coloured  leaves,  the  last  beautiful  clinging 
remnants  of  life  withered  all  at  once  and  fell  away.  It 
was  unreasonable,  perhaps,  that  the  Captain's  theft  of 
the  daffodil  and  what  arose  from  it  should  have  had  this 
result;  but  then  it  was  possibly  unreasonable  that  hope 
and  youth  should  have  had  any  autumn  at  all  and  not 
died  right  off  when  she  said  "No"  and  meant  it  that  after- 

336 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE      337 

noon  in  the  early  summer.  But  then  the  mind  of  man — 
and  woman — is  unreasonable. 

It  was  nearly  half-an-hour  later  when  Julia  picked  up 
the  letters;  both  were  from  Holland;  one,  she  fancied, 
was  from  Mijnheer,  one  from  his  son.  She  opened  the 
latter  first:  she  rather  wondered  what  Joost  could  have 
to  write  about;  he  had  acknowledged  the  receipt  of  the 
daffodil  bulb  long  ago.  The  matter  was  soon  explained ; 
the  letter  was  as  formal  and  precise  as  ever,  but  the  emo- 
tion that  dictated  it,  the  distress  and  regret,  was  quite 
clear  to  Julia  in  spite  of  the  primness  of  expression.  Clear, 
too,  to  her  were  the  conflicting  feelings  that  lay  behind 
the  lover's  contrition  for  what  he  feared  was  abuse  of  his 
mistress's  trust,  and  the  grower's  desire  that  the  treasured 
token  should  be  resolved  into,  what  it  was,  a  wonderful 
bulb,  a  triumph  of  the  horticulturist.  Julia  smiled  a  little 
sadly  as  she  read ;  not  that  she  regretted  the  existence  of 
the  grower  with  the  lover;  she  was  glad  to  see  it  and 
to  know  that  it  was  triumphing.  But  the  whole  affair 
seemed  so  far  off,  so  unimportant,  so  almost  childish.  She 
did  not  care  who  knew  he  had  the  daffodil,  or  whether  it 
bloomed  or  rotted.  In  these  days,  when  her  self-appor- 
tioned burden  was  beginning  to  press  heavily  upon  her 
shoulders,  such  things  did  not  seem  to  matter.  She  had 
a  sense  almost  of  disloyalty  in  feeling  how  little  it  mat- 
tered to  her  when  it  appeared  to  be  so  much  to  this  loyal 
friend. 

Captain  Polkington  had  of  late  had  several  sudden  at- 
tacks of  a  faintness  which  more  often  than  not  amounted 
to  unconsciousness.  "Heart,"  the  doctor  had  said  when 
he  was  summoned  after  the  first  one ;  he  had  not  regarded 
them  as  very  dangerous,  that  is  to  say  not  likely  to  prove 
fatal  at  any  moment  if  properly  treated  at  the  time.  He 
had  given  instructions  as  to  suitable  treatment,  emphasis- 


338  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

ing  the  fact  that  the  patient  ought  never  to  be  long  out 
of  ear-shot  of  some  one,  as  the  attacks  required  immediate 
remedy.  He  forbade  excitement  and  much  exertion, 
orders  easy  to  fulfil  in  this  case,  and  also  stimulants  of  all 
sorts,  an  order  not  quite  so  easy.  Captain  Polkington 
was  much  displeased  about  this  last;  he  said  it  plainly 
showed  the  doctor  a  fool  who  did  not  know  his  business ; 
stimulant,  as  every  one  knew,  being  the  first  necessity 
for  a  weak  heart.  Julia  pointed  out  that  that  must  vary 
with  the  constitution,  nature  and  disease;  she  also  re- 
called the  fact  that  alcohol  never  had  suited  her  father. 
He  was  naturally  not  convinced  by  her  logic,  and  so  was 
decidedly  sulky;  even  in  time,  by  dint  of  dwelling  upon 
the  subject,  came  to  regard  the  treatment  as  a  conspiracy 
to  annoy  him.  Julia  regretted  this  but  did  not  think  it 
mattered  very  much,  seeing  that  she  had  the  keys;  but 
then  she  did  not  know  of  that  purchase  made  in  the  town. 
The  Captain,  rebelling  against  the  doctor's  order,  hugged 
himself  as  he  thought  of  it  and  of  the  comparatively  spar- 
ing use  he  had  made  of  it  so  far — for  fear  of  being  found 
out.  There  was  no  need  of  him  to  die  by  inches  while 
he  had  that  store  of  life  and  comfort ;  so  he  told  himself, 
and  secretly  made  use  of  it,  with  anything  but  good  re- 
sult. Julia,  marking  the  disimprovement  in  his  health, 
thought  it  was  the  natural  course  and  saved  him  all  work, 
carrying  out  the  doctor's  instructions  more  carefully  than 
ever.  The  hidden  whisky  remained  unknown  to  her,  for 
although  in  the  larger  affairs  of  duplicity  and  diplomacy 
she  easily  outmatched  her  father,  in  matters  requiring 
small  cunning  he  was  much  nearer  her  equal.  In  this 
one  he  showed  almost  preternatural  skill ;  his  whole  heart 
was  in  it,  and  his  wits,  where  it  was  concerned,  were 
sharpened  above  the  average;  he  clung  to  his  secret  as 
a  man  clings  to  his  one  chance  of  life,  made  only  the 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE     339 

more  pertinacious  by  the  contrary  advice  he  had  received. 
But  on  that  November  morning,  after  Julia  had  brought 
her  father  round  by  the  proper  remedies,  she  began  to 
have  suspicions.  They  were  not  founded  on  anything 
definite;  she  could  not  imagine  how  he  should  have  got 
stimulant,  and  his  condition  hardly  justified  her  in  sus- 
pecting it,  yet  she  did.  And  Captain  Polkington  knew 
by  experience  that  that  was  enough  to  prove  unpleasant ; 
it  did  not  matter  much  at  which  end  Julia  got  hold  of 
his  affairs,  she  had  a  knack  of  arriving  at  the  middle 
before  he  was  at  all  ready  for  her.  He  resented  what 
she  said  to  him  that  morning  very  much  indeed.  He  de- 
nied everything  and  defended  himself  well;  although  he 
was  in  fear  all  the  time  that  some  unwary  word  or  un- 
wise denial  should  betray  him  to  his  cross-examiner  who, 
being  herself  no  mean  expert  in  the  double-dealing' arts, 
could  frequently  learn  as  much  from  a  lie  as  from  the 
truth.  In  the  end,  what  between  anxiety  and  annoyance, 
he  lost  control  of  his  temper  and  from  peevish  irritability 
broke  out  suddenly  into  a  fit  of  weak  ungovernable  rage. 
Julia  was  obliged  at  once  to  desist,  seeing  with  regret 
that  she  had  transgressed  one  of  the  doctor's  rules  and 
excited  the  patient  very  much  indeed. 

She  left  him  to  recover  control  of  himself  and  went 
to  look  for  Mr.  Gillat. 

"Johnny,"  she  said,  when  she  found  him.  "I  believe 
father  has  got  whisky.  I  don't  know  where,  but  I  shall 
have  to  find  out ;  you  must  help  me." 

Johnny  professed  his  willingness,  looking  puzzled  and 
unhappy;  he  looked  so  at  times,  again  now,  for. even  he 
had  begun  to  discern  a  shadow  coming  on  the  life  which 
for  a  year  had  been  so  happy  to  him. 

"You  will  have  to  keep  a  watch  on  father,"  Julia  said. 
"He  won't  do  much  while  I  am  watching ;  he  will  wait  till 


340  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

he  is  alone  with  you.  Don't  try  to  prevent  him ;  that  is 
no  good ;  just  watch  and  tell  me." 

Mr.  Gillat  said  he  would,  though  he  did  not  like  the 
job,  and  certainly  was  ill-fitted  for  it.  Julia  knew  that, 
but  knew  also  that  to  discover  anything  she  must  depend 
a  good  deal  upon  him,  unless  she  could  by  searching  light 
upon  the  store  of  spirit  which  she  could  not  help  thinking 
her  father  had  in  or  near  the  house.  She  determined  to 
make  a  systematic  search ;  but  before  she  did  so  she  found 
time  to  open  Mijnheer's  letter. 

It  was  rather  a  long  letter  and  very  neat.  It  set  forth 
in  formal  Dutch  the  old  man's  ideas  concerning  the  daffo- 
dil bulb  and  his  offer  regarding  it.  It  should  be  kept, 
he  said,  if  it  was  paid  for,  not  otherwise.  Something 
now,  she  was  to  name  her  terms,  while  it  was  still  uncer- 
tain whether  its  flower  would  be  blue  or  streaked  or  even 
common  yellow — more  later,  in  accordance  with  the  flow- 
ering and  the  profits  likely  to  arise. 

So  Julia  read  and  sat  staring.  An  offer  for  "The  Good 
Comrade."  Money  from  the  people  to  whom  it  had  al- 
ways practically  belonged  in  her  estimation.  She  could 
not  take  it  from  them,  it  was  impossible;  the  thing  was 
virtually  their  own!  But  if  she  did  not.  She  reread 
Joosts's  letter  with  its  protestations,  and  Mijnheer's  with 
its  offer — if  she  did  not,  the  little  brown  bulb  would  be 
sent  back  to  her.  Mijnheer,  now  that  he  knew  of  its 
coming,  would  insist  on  its  return  unless  it  were  paid  for ; 
and  Joost,  she  knew  very  well,  would  not  deceive  his 
father  and  keep  it  secretly,  or  defy  his  father  and  keep  it 
openly ;  the  money  or  the  bulb  she  must  have.  And  the 
bulb  she  could  not,  would  not  have  again ;  so  the  money, 
unearned,  distasteful,  having  a  not  too  pleasant  savour, 
must  be  hers.  At  last,  in  this  way,  without  her  contriv- 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE      341 

ance,  against  her  will,  there  had  come  a  way  to  pay  the 
debt  of  honour !  I 

She  sat  down  and  wrote  to  Mijnheer  and  named  her 
price.  Thirty  pounds  she  asked  for,  no  more  in  the  fu- 
ture, no  less  now ;  that  was  the  only  price  she  could  take 
for  "The  Good  Comrade,"  it  was  the  sum  Rawson-Clew 
had  paid  to  his  cousin  two  years  ago. 

Johnny  posted  the  letter  that  afternoon  while  Julia  be- 
gan her  search  for  her  father's  hidden  whisky. 

All  the  afternoon  Captain  Polkington  sat  in  the  easy- 
chair,  watching  her  contemptuously  when  she  was  in 
sight  and  moving  uneasily  when  she  was  not.  He  did 
not  think  she  would  find  anything,  at  least  not  at  once, 
though  he  was  afraid  she  would  if  she  kept  on  long 
enough  and  he  left  his  treasure  in  its  present  hiding- 
place.  It  would  not  last  so  much  longer — he  dared  not 
contemplate  the  time  when  it  should  all  be  gone ;  it  was 
characteristic  of  him  that  he  was  easily  able  to  avoid 
doing  so.  The  principaal  thought  in  his  mind  was  a  de- 
termination that  it  should  not  be  found  while  any  re- 
mained. That  could  not  and  should  not  happen ;  the  last 
little  which  he  had  carefully  hoarded,  which  he  had  stinted 
and  deprived  himself  to  save — to  have  that  taken  away, 
to  be  robbed  of  that — the  tears  gathered  in  his  eyes  at 
the  pathos  of  the  thought. 

But  the  whisky  was  not  found  that  day,  and  the  Cap- 
tain, who  slept  but  badly  at  this  time,  lay  awake  long  in 
the  night  planning  how  and  when  he  could  move  it  to  a 
place  of  safety  further  away  from  the  house.  He  would 
have  gone  down  then  and  there,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
it  was  a  blustering  night  of  wind  and  rain  and  he  not 
fitted  to  go  out  in  such  weather,  but  he  was  afraid  of 
Julia.  She  was  certain  to  hear  and  follow;  she  had  al- 
most an  animal's  alertness  when  once  she  was  on  the 


342  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

trail  of  anything.     So  he  lay  and  planned  and  waited, 
hoping  that  a  chance  would  come  during  the  next  day. 

It  did  not.  Julia  was  at  home  all  day  and,  as  she  had 
forseen,  he  made  no  move  while  she  was  about.  But  the 
following  morning  she  had  to  go  to  Halgrave  about  the 
killing  of  a  pig ;  Johnny  was  hardly  equal  to  making  the 
necessary  arrangements  and  certainly  could  not  do  so 
good  as  she.  Accordingly,  she  went  herself,  not  very 
reluctantly,  for  she  was  nearly  certain  her  father  would 
make  an  effort  to  get  at  his  whisky,  if  he  had  any,  as 
soon  as  her  back  was  turned,  and  so  give  Johnny  a  chance 
of  finding  out  about  it.  Of  course  it  was  quite  likely  that 
Johnny,  being  Johnny,  would  miss  the  chance,  but  he 
might  not,  and  even  if  he  did  they  would  not  be  much 
worse  off  than  before.  So  she  thought  as  she  started, 
leaving  the  Captain,  who  was  still  in  bed,  with  a  very 
vague  idea  as  to  when  she  would  be  back. 

He  was  a  good  deal  annoyed  by  this  vagueness ;  it  meant 
he  would  have  to  hurry,  a  thing  he  hated  and  did  very 
badly ;  and,  perhaps,  entirely  without  reason,  too,  for  she 
might  be  three  hours  gone ;  though,  equally  of  course,  only 
two,  or  perhaps — she  was  capable  of  anything  unpleas- 
ant and  unexpected — only  one.  He  began  to  dress  as 
quickly  as  he  could ;  but,  owing  to  long  habit  of  doing  it 
as  slowly  as  he  could  so  as  to  postpone  more  arduous 
tasks,  that  was  not  very  fast.  He  wished  he  had  known 
sooner  that  Julia  was  going  to  Halgrave,  he  would  have 
begun  getting  up  before  this;  he  would  even  have  got 
to  breakfast  if  only  she  had  let  him  know  ;  so  he  fumed  to 
himself  as  he  shuffled  about,  dropping  things  with  his 
shaking  fingers.  At  last  he  was  dressed  and  came  down- 
stairs to  find  Johnny,  pink  and  apologetic  as  he  used  to 
be  in  the  Marbridge  days,  laboriously  doing  odd  jobs 
which  did  not  need  doing. 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE      343 

There  was  not  a  detective  lost  in  Mr.  Gillat,  he  had 
not  the  making  of  a  sleuth-hound  in  him;  or  even  a 
watch-dog,  except,  perhaps,  of  that  well-meaning  kind 
which  gets  itself  perennially  kicked  for  incessant  and  in- 
curable tail  wagging  at  inopportune  times.  The  half- 
hour  which  followed  Captain  Polkington's  coming  down- 
stairs was  a  trying  one.  The  Captain  went  to  the  back 
door  to  look  out ;  Mr.  Gillat  followed  him,  though  scarcely 
like  his  shadow;  he  was  not  inconspicuous,  and  neither 
he  nor  his  motive  were  easy  to  overlook.  The  Captain 
said  something  approbious  about  the  weather  and  the 
high  wind  and  occasional  heavy  swishes  of  rain;  then 
he  went  to  the  sitting-room  which  lay  behind  the  kitchen, 
and  near  to  the  front  door.  Johnny  followed  him,  and 
the  Captain  faced  round  on  him,  irritably  demanding  what 
the  devil  he  wanted. 

"To — to  see  if  the  register  is  shut,"  Mr.  Gillat  said, 
beaming  at  his  own  deep  diplomacy  and  the  brilliancy  of 
the  idea  which  had  come  to  him — rather  tardily,  it  is 
true,  still  in  time  to  pass  muster. 

The  Captain  flung  himself  into  a  chair  with  a  sigh  of 
irritation.  "It  is  a  funny  thing  I  can't  be  let  alone  a 
moment,"  he  said.  "I  came  in  here  for  a  little  quiet 
and  coolness,  I  didn't  want  you  dodging  after  me." 

"No,"  Johnny  agreed  amiably;  "no,  of  course  not." 
Then,  after  a  long  pause,  as  if  he  had  just  made  sure  of 
the  fact,  "It  is  cool  in  here." 

It  was,  very;  it  might  even  have  been  called  cold  and 
raw,  for  there  had  not  been  a  fire  there  for  days,  but  the 
Captain  did  not  move,  and  Johnny,  stooping  by  the  fire- 
place, examined  the  register  of  the  chimney,  fondly  be- 
lieving in  his  own  impenetrable  deceptiveness. 

"I  can't  help  thinking  it  ought  to  be  shut,"  he  observed, 


344  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

looking  thoughtfully  up  the  chimney ;  "the  rain  will  come 
down ;  it  might  rain  a  good  deal  if  the  wind  were  to  drop." 

"The  wind  is  not  going  to  drop  for  hours,"  the  Cap- 
tain snapped ;  "it  is  getting  higher." 

A  great  gust  rumbled  in  the  chimney  as  he  spoke,  and 
flung  itself  with  the  thud  of  a  palpable  body  against  the 
window-pane.  Mr.  Gillat  heard  it;  he  could  not  well  do 
otherwise.  "Still,"  he  said,  "it  might  rain;  one  never 
knows." 

He  took  hold  of  the  register  with  the  tongs  and  tried 
to  shut  it.  It  was  obstinate,  and  he  pulled  this  way  and 
that,  working  in  his  usual  laborious  and  conscientious 
way.  At  last  it  slipped  and  he  managed  to  get  it  jammed 
crossways.  Thus  he  had  to  leave  it,  for  Captain  Polking- 
ton,  apparently  cool  enough  now,  wandered  back  into  the 
kitchen. 

Mr.  Gillat,  of  course,  followed  and  arranged  and  rear- 
ranged pots  on  the  stove  till  the  Captain  said  he  had  left 
his  handkerchief  up-stairs.  Stairs  were  trying  to  his 
heart,  so  Johnny  had  to  go  for  it.  Up  he  went  as  fast 
as  he  could,  and  came  down  again  almost  faster,  for 
he  tumbled  on  the  second  step  and  slipped  the  rest  of 
the  way  with  considerable  noise  and  bumping. 

After  that  Captain  Polkington  gave  up  his  efforts  to 
get  rid  of  his  guard  and  resigned  himself  to  fate.  At 
least,  so  thought  Mr.  Gillat,  who  no  amount  of  experience 
could  instruct  in  the  guilt  of  the  human  race  in  general 
and  the  Polkingtons  in  particular.  The  first  hour  of 
Julia's  absence  had  passed  when  Johnny  went  into  the 
back  kitchen  to  clean  knives.  He  left  the  door  between 
the  rooms  open,  but  from  habit  more  than  from  any 
thought  of  keeping  an  eye  on  his  charge.  They  had  been 
talking  in  the  ordinary  way  for  some  time  now,  the  Cap- 
tain sitting  so  peacefully  by  the  fire  that  Mr.  Gillat  had 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE      345 

begun  to  forget  he  was  supposed  to  watch.  And  really 
it  would  seem  he  was  justified,  for  the  Captain,  of  his 
own  accord,  left  the  easy-chair  and  followed  him  into 
the  back  kitchen,  standing  watching  the  knife-cleaning. 
He  had  been  talking  of  old  times,  recalling  far  back  inci- 
dents regretfully;  he  continued  to  do  so  as  he  watched 
Johnny  at  work  until  he  was  interrupted  by  a  loud  siz- 
zling in  the  kitchen. 

"Hullo !"  he  said,  "there's  a  pot  boiling  over !"  and  he 
made  as  if  he  would  go  to  it  but  half  stopped.  "It  is  the 
big  one,"  he  said,  "perhaps  you  had  betted  take  it  off; 
I'm  not  good  at  lifting  weights  now-a-days." 

"No,  no!"  Johnny  said  hastily;  "don't  you  do  it,  you 
leave  it  to  me,"  and  he  hurried  into  the  kitchen  to  take 
from  the  fire  a  pot  which,  had  he  only  remembered  it, 
had  not  been  so  near  the  blaze  when  he  left  it. 

"It  is  too  heavy  for  you,"  he  went  on  as  he  lifted  it ;  "I 
don't  know  what  is  inside,  only  water,  I  think;  it  will 
be  all  right  here  by  the  side." 

A  gust  of  wind  swept  round  the  kitchen,  fluttering  the 
herbs  which  hung  from  the  ceiling  and  blowing  the  dust 
and  flame  from  the  front  of  the  fire. 

"Dear,  dear!"  Mr.  Gillat  exclaimed  as  he  drew  back, 
"What  a  wind!"  Then,  as  he  caught  the  whisper  and 
whistle  of  the  leafless  things  which  whisper  to  one  an- 
other out  of  doors  even  in  the  dead  winter  time,  he 
realised  that  the  outer  door  must  be  open. 

"Shut  it!"  he  said.  "The  latch  is  so  old,  it  is  begin- 
ning to  get  worn  out,  and  the  wind  is  so  strong,  too.  Let 
me  see  if  I  can  shut  it."  He  went  to  the  back  kitchen 
for  that  purpose  and  found  that  he  was  talking  to  empty 
air,  the  Captain  was  gone. 

In  great  consternation  he  went  out  after  his  charge. 
He  had  not  had  a  minute's  start ;  he  could  not  have  got 


346  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

far,  not  much  more  than  round  the  corner  of  the  house. 
So  thought  Mr.  Gillat,  and  started  round  the  nearest 
corner  after  him.  Julia  would  not  have  done  that;  with 
the  instinct  of  the  wild  animal  and  the  rogue  for  cover, 
and  for  the  value  of  the  obvious  in  concealment,  she 
would  have  looked  by  the  water  butt  first.  It  was  not 
a  hiding-place ;  the  bush  beside  did  not  half  conceal  Cap- 
tain Poikington,  yet  he  stood  dark  and  unobtrusive 
against  it  and  so  close  to  the  door  that  in  looking  out 
for  him  one  naturally  looked  beyond  him.  As  Johnny 
went  round  one  side  of  the  house  the  Captain  left  the 
meagre  shelter  of  the  butt  and  went  round  the  other,  bent 
now  on  finding  some  better  hiding-place  till  it  should  be 
safe  for  him  to  go  to  his  precious  store.  And  seeing  that 
he  was  braced  by  an  insatiable  whisky  thirst  and  so  pos- 
sessed by  one  idea  that  he  had  almost  a  madman's  cun- 
ning in  achieving  his  purpose,  it  is  not  wonderful  that 
he  succeeded.  While*  Johnny  hastily  searched  the  out- 
buildings he  lay  hid.  And  when  at  last  Mr.  Gillat  went 
back  to  the  house,  being  convinced  that  his  charge  must 
have  gone  back  before  him,  he,  nerved  and  strengthened 
by  a  dose  of  the  precious  spirit,  carefully  climbed  over 
the  garden  wall,  carrying  with  him  all  that  was  left  of 
his  store.  It  was  rather  heavy,  and  the  rising  wind  was 
strong,  but  he  was  strong,  too,  and  he  bore  more  strength 
with  him.  He  could  carry  a  weight  and  fight  with  the 
wind  if  he  wanted  to ;  his  heart  was  well  enough  when  it 
was  properly  treated.  And  it  should  be  properly  treated 
as  long  as  he  had  his  comfort,  his  precious  medicine  safe 
and  in  a  place  where  prying  hands  could  not  touch  it. 

Julia  came  home  from  Halgrave  later  than  she  ex- 
pected, but  the  wind  had  increased  to  a  gale,  so  that  walk- 
ing along  the  exposed  road  had  been  no  easy  matter. 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE      347 

Johnny  by  this  time  was  almost  desperate  with  alarm,  for 
Captain  Polkington  had  not  come  back  and,  in  spite  of 
a  continuous  search  in  likely  and  unlikely  places,  he  had 
not  been  able  to  find  any  trace  of  him  or  his  whisky.  It 
is  true  his  search  was  not  very  systematic  at  the  best  of 
times ;  it  is  not  likely  to  have  been  now ;  as  his  alarm  in- 
creased, it  grew  worse,  until,  by  the  time  Julia  came  in, 
it  had  become  little  more  than  a  repeated  looking  in  the 
same  unlikely  places  and  an  incessant  toiling  up  and 
down-stairs  and  across  the  garden  in  the  howling  wind. 

His  account  of  the  Captain's  vanishing  was  much  ob- 
scured by  self-condemnation  and  anxiety,  still  she  man- 
aged to  make  it  out  and  she  did  not  at  first  think  so  very 
seriously  of  it.  She  concluded  from  it  that  her  father 
had  succeeded  in  getting  at  his  whisky  and  Johnny  had 
failed  to  prevent  him  or  find  out  the  whereabouts  of  the 
store — a  not  very  astonishing  occurrence.  The  fact  that 
the  Captain  had  not  returned  or  shown  himself  for  so 
long  was  surprising  and  to  be  regretted,  seeing  the  bad- 
ness of  the  weather.  But  it  was  not  inexplicable;  he 
might  be  anxious  to  demonstrate  his  freedom,  or,  by 
frightening  them,  to  pay  them  out  for  the  watch  lately 
kept  on  him ;  or — and  this  was  the  one  serious  aspect  of 
the  matter — he  might  have  taken  more  of  the  spirit  than 
he  could  stand  in  his  weak  state  and  be  too  stupid  and 
muddled  to  come  back  alone.  Julia  reassured  Johnny  as 
well  as  she  could,  and  then,  accompanied  by  him,  set  to 
work  to  search  thoroughly  the  house,  garden  and  out- 
buildings. 

It  was  dinner  time  before  they  had  finished.  Julia 
came  to  the  doorway  of  the  bulb  shed  uneasy  and  per- 
plexed. "It  is  clear  he  is  not  here,"  she  said,  and  turned 
to  fasten  the  door.  A  gust  of  wind  tore  it  from  her  hand, 
flinging  it  back  noisily.  She  caught  it  again  and  secured 


348  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

it.  "It  is  dinner  time,"  she  said;  "come  along  indoors, 
there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  go  hungry  because 
father  chooses  to." 

Johnny  followed  her  to  the  house.  When  they  were  in- 
doors he  said,  "Do  you  think — you  don't  think  he  has  had 
an  attack? — that  he  is  lying  unconscious  somewhere?" 
That  was  precisely  what  Julia  was  beginning  to  think; 
there  seemed  no  other  possible  explanation.  Johnny  read 
her  mind  in  her  face  and  was  overwhelmed  with  the  sense 
of  his  own  shortcomings  and  their  possible  consequences. 

"It  is  not  your  fault,"  Julia  assured  him;  "you  might 
as  well  say  it  is  father's  for  being  so  foolish  and  obstinate 
about  his  whisky — a  great  deal  better  and  more  truly  say 
it  is  mine  for  leaving  you,  and  for  driving  him  into  this 
corner,  for  not  having  managed  the  whole  thing  better." 

Johnny,  though  a  little  relieved  that  she  did  not  think 
him  to  blame,  was  not  comforted.  "Let  us  go  and  find 
him,"  he  said ;  "we  must  find  him ;  never  mind  about  din- 
ner— we  must  go  and  look  for  him — though  I  don't  know 
where." 

"We  must  look  beyond  the  garden,"  Julia  said;  "he 
must  have  got  further  than  we  first  thought — but  I  don't 
see  how  he  can  be  far  in  this  weather.  Cut  some  cheese 
and  bread ;  we  can  eat  it  as  we  go  along." 

In  a  little  while  they  set  out  together,  Julia  taking  re- 
storatives with  her,  though  she  was  also  careful  to  leave 
some  on  the  kitchen-table  in  case  Captain  Polkington 
should  make  his  way  back  and  feel  in  need  of  them  in 
her  absence.  Outside  the  garden  wall  one  felt  the  force 
of  the  wind  more  fully,  and  realised  how  impossible  it  was 
that  the  Captain  should  have  gone  far.  Julia  stood  a 
moment  by  the  gate.  Before  her  lay  the  road  to  Hal- 
grave  ;  her  father  might  have  gone  down  it  a  little  way ; 
but  if  he  had  he  must  have  turned  off  and  sought  conceal- 


THE  LINE  OF  LEAST  RESISTANCE      349 

ment  somewhere  for  she  had  seen  no  sign  of  any  one 
when  she  came  home.  To  the  left  stretched  the  heath- 
land,  brown  and  bare,  to  the  belt  of  wildly  tossing  pines ; 
it  was  hard  to  imagine  her  father  choosing  that  way.  To 
the  right  lay  the  sandhills,  a  place  of  unsteady  outline, 
earth  and  sky  alike  pale  and  blurred  as  the  north-west 
wind  fled  seawards,  lifting  and  whirling  the  fine  particles 
till  the  air  seemed  full  of  them ;  it  was  impossible  to  think 
of  any  one  choosing  that  way. 

"We  will  go  down  the  road  to  begin  with,"  Julia  said, 
and  started. 

All  through  the  early  part  of  the  afternoon  they 
searched ;  sometimes  stopped  for  a  moment  by  a  gust  of 
wind;  Julia  caught  and  whirled,  Johnny  brought  to  a 
panting  standstill.  But  on  again  directly,  struggling 
down  the  road,  looking  in  ditches  and  behind  scant  bushes, 
leaving  the  track  first  on  the  right  hand  then  on  the  left, 
searching  in  likely  and  unlikely  places.  But  always  with 
the  same  result,  there  was  no  sign  of  the  missing  man. 
At  last,  when  they  had  reached  a  greater  distance  than 
it  was  possible  to  imagine  the  Captain  could  have  gone, 
they  turned  towards  the  house  across  the  heath.  It  was 
difficult  to  think  of  the  Captain  going  that  way,  seeing 
he  would  have  been  walking  in  the  teeth  of  the  wind,  but 
it  almost  seemed  he  must  have  done  it. 

The  short  day  was  already  beginning  to  close  in  when 
they  reached  the  belt  of  pines.  It  had  grown  much  cold- 
er; one  could  almost  believe  there  would  be  frost  in  the 
air  by  and  by.  The  wind  was  lulling  a  little;  it  still 
roared  with  strange  rushings  and  half-demented  tearings 
at  the  tree-tops,  almost  like  some  great  spirit  prisoned 
there,  but  it  had  spent  its  first  strength.  The  rain  clouds 
were  going,  too ;  already  in  places  the  sky  was  swept  clear 
so  that  a  pale  light  gleamed  behind  the  trees. 


350  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

Julia  stood  in  the  vibrant  shelter  of  the  pines,  push- 
ing back  her  hair;  she  was  bareheaded;  a  hat  had  been 
an  impossible  superfluity  when  she  started  out. 

''Johnny,"  she  said,  "we  have  come  too  far ;  father  could 
not  have  got  to  the  trees  in  such  weather  as  it  was  when  he 
started;  we  must  go  back.  I  expect  he  is  somewhere 
nearer  home;  we  have  not  half  searched  the  possible 
radius  yet." 

Johnny  said  "Yes."  He  was  dog-tired,  so  tired  that 
his  anxiety  was  now  little  more  than  dull  despair  animated 
by  an  unquestioning  determination  to  continue  the  search. 

He  would  have  done  so  somehow,  and  with  his  flag- 
ging energies  been  more  hindrance  than  help,  had  not 
Julia  prevented  him;  as  they  neared  the  house,  now  al- 
most merged  in  the  dusk,  she  said — 

"I  am  going  to  fetch  a  lantern;  the  moon  will  be  up 
soon,  but  until  then  I  shall  want  a  light.  I  am  just  com- 
ing in  to  get  it,  then  I  shall  go  out  again;  but  you  must 
stop  at  home;  father  may  come  back,  and  if  he  found 
us  both  out  after  dark  he  would  think  something  was 
wrong  and  start  to  look  for  us ;  then  we  should  be  worse 
off  than  ever." 

Johnny  said  "Yes" ;  but  suggested,  "I  think  we'd  better 
look  round  about  the  house  once  more.  I  think  I'll  take 
a  light  and  look  round  again." 

Julia  did  not  think  it  would  be  much  use ;  however  she 
consented,  though  she  had  to  go  with  Johnny ;  she  did 
not  trust  him  with  a  lantern  among  the  outbuildings. 
They  looked  round  once  more,  in  the  sheds  and  in  the 
dark  garden ;  afterwards  they  went  out  and  looked  be- 
yond the  wall  all  round,  on  the  side  where  the  heather 
grew  and  also  on  the  side  where  the  loose  sand  came  close. 
It  took  time;  Johnny  was  too  tired  to  move  quickly  or 


351 

even  to  understand  quickly  what  was  said  to  him.  At  last 
Julia  stopped  and  spoke  decisely. 

"You  had  better  go  in  now,"  she  said;  "it  won't  do 
for  us  both  to  be  out  any  longer;  one  of  us  must  go  in, 
and  I  think  it  had  better  be  you.  Make  a  good  fire,  see 
that  there  is  plenty  of  hot  water  and  get  something  to 
eat  so  as  to  be  ready  to  do  things  when  I  come  back." 

Johnny  acquiesced  and  Julia,  having  watched  him  into 
the  house,  took  up  her  lantern  and  set  out  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  sandhills. 

It  was  her  last  resource;  it  did  not  seem  to  her  likely 
that  her  father  could  have  gone  there ;  at  the  best  of  times 
he  disliked  the  place,  finding  it  very  tiring.  Still,  with 
the  wind  behind  him  as  it  would  have  been  this  morn- 
ing, it  is  possible  he  would  have  found  it  the  easiest  way 
— if  he  could  have  managed  to  forget  what  the  coming 
back  would  be.  At  all  events  she  determined  to  try  it, 
so  she  set  out  for  the  waste. 

By  this  time  the  moon  was  rising,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
driving  clouds  which  had  not  all  dispersed,  at  times  it 
shone  clear.  Beneath  it  the  stretch  of  sand  lay  pale  and 
desolate,  a  new-formed  landscape  of  fresh  contours,  loose- 
ly-piled hills  and  shallow  scooped  hollows  shaped  by  to- 
day's wind.  An  easy  place  for  a  man  to  miss  his  way 
with  a  gale  blowing  and  the  sand  dancing  blinding  reels. 
A  hard  place  for  a  man  to  travel  far  when  he  had  to  face 
the  wind ;  a  strong  man  would  have  found  it  very  tiring, 
a  weak  man  might  well  have  given  it  up,  driven  to  waiting 
for  a  lull  in  the  weather.  As  for  a  man  in  the  Captain's 
health — when  Julia  thought  of  it  she  hurried  on,  although 
she  knew  if  her  father  had  to-day,  as  he  had  all  through 
his  life,  followed  the  line  of  least  resistance,  the  chances 
were  that  her  help  would  be  of  little  avail  to  him  now. 

She  carried  her  lantern  low,  looking  carefully  for  foot- 


352  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

prints;  soon,  however,  she  put  it  out;  she  would  do  bet- 
ter without  in  the  increasing  moon-light.  But  she  found 
no  prints;  after  all,  as  she  remembered,  she  was  hardly 
likely  to ;  the  wind  and  blowing  sand  would  have  obliter- 
ated them.  Over  the  first  level  of  sand  she  went  to  the 
nearest  rise  without  seeing  anything ;  up  to  that  and  down 
the  following  hollow,  looking  in  every  curve  and  inden- 
tation, still  without  seeing  anything.  Then  she  began 
to  climb  the  next  rise.  The  moon  was  struggling  through 
a  long  cloud,  one  moment  eclipsed,  the  next  shining  with 
a  half  radiance  which  made  the  landscape  unevenly  black 
and  white.  For  a  second  it  looked  out  clear,  and  the  sand 
showed  like  silver,  tear-spotted  with  ink  in  the  hollows; 
then  the  cloud  swept  up  and  all  turned  to  a  level  grey. 
She  had  climbed  to  the  top  of  a  rise  by  now,  sinking  deep 
and  noiseless  into  the  soft  sand.  It  was  too  dark  to  see 
what  was  below ;  all  was  shadow,  black  shadow— or  was 
it  a  blackness  more  substantial  than  shadow? 

The  cloud  passed  from  off  the  moon's  face,  the  light 
shone  out  once  more,  turning  the  sand  to  silver.  All  the 
great  empty  space,  where  the  dying  wind  still  throbbed, 
was  white  silver,  except  down  in  the  hollow  where,  black 
and  still,  lay  the  man  who  had  followed  the  line  of  least 
resistance. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

PAYMENT  AND  RECEIPT 

ON  the  day  of  Captain  Polkington's  funeral,  a  letter 
was  brought  to  White's  Cottage.  Julia  herself  took  it  in, 
and  when  she  saw  that  it  was  from  Holland  she  asked 
the  postman  to  wait  a  minute  as  she  would  be  glad  if 
he  would  post  a  letter  for  her.  He  sat  down,  nothing 
loth ;  the  cottage  was  the  last  place  on  his  round  and  he 
never  minded  a  rest  there.  He  waited  while  Julia  went 
up-stairs  with  her  letter.  She  opened  it  before  she  got 
to  her  room  and  barely  read  the  contents ;  there  was  en- 
closed a  cheque  for  thirty  pounds,  the  price  of  "The  Good 
Comrade." 

It  had  come,  then,  at  last,  this  money  for  which  she 
had  been  waiting  two  years — but  too  late.  The  man  in 
whose  name  she  would  have  paid  the  debt  lay  dead.  She 
had  planned  to  clear  him  without  his  knowledge,  rein- 
state him  in  the  good  opinion  of  his  debtor  without  letting 
her  hand  be  seen;  and  she  could  not,  for  he  was  dead, 
and  there  was  no  hand  but  hers,  and  no  name  to  clear. 
It  was  not  a  week  too  late,  yet  so  much,  so  bitterly  much. 
Too  late  for  her  cherished  plan,  too  late  for  any  of  the 
things  she  had  hoped,  too  late  for  triumph,  or  joy,  or 
satisfaction;  too  late  to  demonstrate  the  once  hoped  for 
equality;  too  late  for  the  fulfilling  of  anything  but  a 
dogged  purpose.  For  a  moment  she  looked  at  the  cheque, 
feeling  the  irony  which  had  sent  her  the  means  of  paying 

353 


354  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

his  debt  now  that  her  father  lay  in  his  coffin,  indifferent 
to  his  good  name  and  his  honour ;  unable,  alike,  to  clear  or 
be  cleared,  to  wrong  or  be  wronged;  removed  by  kindly 
death  from  the  scope  of  earthly  judgment,  even  the  just 
thoughts  of  one  who  had  suffered  on  his  account. 

She  put  down  the  cheque  and  pencilled  some  hasty 
words — "In  payment  of  Captain  Polkington's  debt  (to 
Mr.  Rawson-Clew)  discharged  by  Hubert  Farquhar  Raw- 
son-Clew  on  the  —  November  19—" 

So  she  wrote,  then  she  put  the  slip  with  the  cheque  in 
an  envelope  and  addressed  it  to  the  London  club  where 
the  explosive  had  been  sent. 

"It  will  be  posted  before  the  funeral,"  she  thought; 
"I'm  glad — it  will  all  end  together — poor  father!" 

She  went  down-stairs  and  gave  the  letter  to  the  post- 
man. Mrs.  Polkington  came  into  the  kitchen  as  she  was 
doing  so,  for  Mrs.  Polkington  was  at  the  cottage  now. 

There  are  some  women  who  seem  designed  by  nature 
for  widows,  just  as  there  are  others  designed  for  grand- 
mothers and  yet  others  for  old  maids.  Mrs.  Polking- 
ton was  of  the  first  sort ;  she  seemed  specially  created  to 
adorn  the  position  of  widow-hood ;  she  certainly  did  adorn 
it;  she  was  a  pattern  to  all  widows  and  did  not  miss  a 
single  point  of  the  situation.  Of  course  she  came  to  the 
cottage  as  soon  as  possible  after  receiving  news  of  her 
husband's  death.  The  journey  was  long  and  expensive, 
the  weather  somewhat  bad;  that  weighed  for  nothing 
with  her ;  she  was  there  as  soon  as  might  be,  feeling,  say- 
ing and  doing  just  what  a  bereaved  widow  ought.  The 
fact  that  she  and  her  husband  had  been  obliged  through 
the  force  of  circumstances,  to  live  separate  the  past  year 
did  not  alter  her  emotions,  her  real  tears  or  her  real  grief. 
Considering  the  practice  and  experience  she  had  had  it 
would  have  been  surprising  if  she  had  not  succeeded  in 


PAYMENT    AND    RECEIPT  355 

deceiving  herself  as  well  as  most  of  her  world  in  these 
things.  So  acute  were  her  feelings  that  when  she  came 
into  the  kitche  i  and  saw  Julia  dispatching  the  letter,  she 
felt  quite  a  shock. 

"What  is  it?"  she  asked;  "What  is  the  matter?" 

"Only  a  letter  that  could  not  wait,"  Julia  answered. 

"Surely  it  could  have  waited  till  to-morrow,"  her  moth- 
er said;  "under  the  circumstances  surely  one  would  be 
excused." 

Julia  thought  differently  but  did  not  say  so,  and  in 
silence  set  about  some  necessary  preparation. 

The  Reverend  Richard  Frazer  came  to  the  funeral; 
Violet  was  unable  to  do  so ;  he  represented  her  and  sup- 
ported his  mother-in-law  too.  The  banker,  Mr.  Ponson- 
by,  also  made  the  tedious  journey  to  Halgrave ;  he  came 
out  of  respect  for  death  in  the  abstract,  and  also  because 
he  expected  affairs  would  want  looking  to,  and  it  would 
suit  him  better  to  do  it  now  than  later.  These  two  with 
Johnny,  Julia  and  her  mother,  were  the  only  mourners 
at  the  funeral;  a  few  village  folk,  moved  by  curiosity, 
attended,  but  no  one  else;  there  was  not  even  an  empty 
carriage,  representative  of  a  good  family,  following  the 
humble  cortege.  Mrs.  Polkington  observed  this  and  felt 
it;  an  empty  carriage  and  good  livery  following  would 
have  given  her  satisfaction,  without  in  any  way  diminish- 
ing her  sorrow  and  proper  feeling.  It  is  conceivable  she 
would  have  found  satisfaction  in  being  shipwrecked  in 
aristocratic  company,  without  at  the  same  time,  suffering 
less  than  she  ought  to  suffer. 

After  the  funeral  they  returned  to  the  cottage  and  had 
a  repast  of  Julia's  providing,  eminently  suitable  to  the 
occasion.  Everything  was  eminently  suitable,  every  one's 
behaviour,  every  one's  clothes;  Mr.  Frazer's  grave  face, 
the  banker's  jerky  manner — the  manner  of  a  man  con- 


356  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

earned  with  the  world's  money  market  and  ill  at  ease  in 
the  intrusive  presence  of  death.  Mrs.  Polkington's  voice, 
face,  feelings,  sayings,  everything.  Julia's  own  be- 
haviour was  perfect,  though  all  the  time  she  saw  how  it 
looked  as  plainly  as  if  she  had  been  another  and  disin- 
terested person,  and  once  or  twice  she  had  an  hysterical 
desire  to  applaud  a  good  stroke  of  her  mother's  or  prompt 
a  backward  speech  of  her  uncle's.  Mr.  Gillat,  of  course, 
did  nothing  suitable;  he  never  did.  He  kept  up  a  pre- 
ternaturally  cheerful  appearance  during  the  meal,  stop- 
ping his  mouth  with  large  corks  of  bread,  answering  "Ah, 
yes,  yes,  just  so,"  indiscriminately  whenever  he  was 
spoken  to,  and  starting  three  separate  conversations  on 
the  weather  on  his  own  account.  As  soon  as  the  table 
was  cleared,  he  fled  into  the  back  kitchen,  shut  himself 
in  with  the  dishes,  and  was  seen  no  more.  The  others 
remained  in  the  sitting-room  and  talked  things  over,  ar- 
ranging plans  for  the  future  and  for  the  immediate  pres- 
ent. And  when  the  time  came  and  the  conveyance  was 
brought  to  the  gate,  they  set  out  on  the  homeward  journey 
together.  Johnny  did  not  come  out  of  the  kitchen  to  say 
good-bye ;  only  Julia  came  to  the  gate. 

Mr.  Ponsonby  was  going  back  home;  Mr.  Frazer  and 
Mrs.  Polkington  were  going  with  him  to  spend  the  night 
in  town  and  go  on  westwards  the  next  morning.  Mr. 
Frazer  was  anxious  to  get  back  to  his  parish,  and  Mrs. 
Polkington  to  her  daughter,  who  was  expecting  her  first 
baby  shortly.  It  was  this  expected  event  which  prevented 
the  young  rector  from  asking  Julia  to  stay  with  him  and 
Violet  until  such'  time  as  she  and  her  mother  could  settle 
somewhere  together.  It  was  this  same  event  which  pre- 
vented Mrs.  Polkington  from  remaining  at  White's  Cot- 
tage and  sharing  Julia's  solitude  until  their  plans  were 
settled.  All  this  was  explained  to  Julia  in  the  best  Polk- 


PAYMENT    AND    RECEIPT  357 

ington  manner  and  she  seemed  quite  satisfied  with  the  ex- 
planation. Mr.  Ponsonby  had  to  be  perforce;  there 
seemed  no  alternative;  all  the  same  he  was  not  quite 
pleased.  It  was  all  sensible  enough,  of  course,  only  as 
he  saw  Julia  standing  at  the  gate  in  the  November  after- 
noon, he  did  not  quite  like  it. 

"Look  here,"  he  said  shortly,  "you  shut  up  this  place 
here,  send  Mr.  Gillat  to  his  friends,  or  his  rooms,  or 
wherever  he  came  from,  and  come  to  me.  You  can  come 
and  make  your  home  with  me,  and  welcome,  till  things 
are  settled ;  there's  plenty  of  room." 

This  was  a  good  deal  for  Mr.  Ponsonby  to  say,  consid- 
ering what  an  annoyance  the  Polkington  family  had  been 
to  him,  how — not  without  wisdom — he  had  set  his  face 
against  letting  them  into  his  house  for  more  than  twenty- 
four  hours  at  a  stretch,  and  how  much  this  particular 
member  had  thwarted  and  exasperated  him  at  their  last 
meeting.  Julia  recognised  this  and  recognised  also  the 
kindness  of  the  brusque  suggestion.  She  thanked  him 
warmly  for  the  offer  though  she  refused  it,  assuring  him 
that  she  and  Johnny  would  be  all  right  at  the  cottage. 

"We  do  not  find  it  lonely,"  she  said;  "we  are  quite 
happy  here,  happier  than  anywhere  else,  I  think." 

The  banker  grunted,  not  convinced ;  Mr.  Frazer  shook 
hands  with  Julia  and  said  he  hoped  it  would  not  be  long 
before  he  saw  her;  Mrs.  Polkington  reiterated  the  re- 
mark, kissing  her  the  while;  then  they  drove  away  and 
Julia  went  into  the  house.  She  went  into  the  back  kit- 
chen; Mr.  Gillat  was  not  there;  the  dishes  were  all  put 
away  and  the  place  was  quite  tidy.  Julia  went  through 
to  the  front  kitchen ;  there  she  saw  Johnny ;  he  was  kneel- 
ing by  the  Captain's  old  chair,  his  arms  thrown  across 
the  seat,  his  silly  pink  face  buried  in  them,  his  rounded 
shoulders  shaking  with  sobs. 


358  THE.  GOOD    COMRADE 

Johnny  loved  as  a  dog  loves,  without  reason,  without 
thought  of  return ;  not  for  wisdom,  worth  or  deserts,  just 
because  he  did  love  and,  having  once  loved,  loved  al- 
ways; forgiving  everything,  expecting  nothing — foolish, 
faithful,  true.  So  he  loved  his  friend,  so  he  mourned 
him  now,  be-blubbering  the  seat  of  the  shabby  chair  which 
spoke  so  eloquently  to  him  of  the  irritable,  exacting  pres- 
ence now  gone  for  ever. 

"Johnny,"  Julia  said  softly ;  "Johnny  dear." 

She  put  a  hand  on  the  round  shoulders  and  somehow 
slipped  herself  into  the  shabby  chair. 

"Johnny,"  she  said,  "let  us  sit  by  the  fire  awhile  and 
not  talk  of  anything  at  all." 

So  they  sat  together  till  twilight  fell. 

The  next  day  there  came  another  to  Julia,  one  who 
knew  nothing  of  what  had  befallen  in  these  last  days.  It 
was  almost  twilight  when  he  came ;  Johnny  had  gone  out 
to  collect  fir-cones;  Julia  sent  him,  partly  because  their 
stock  was  low  and  partly  because  she  thought  it  would 
do  him  good.  She  did  not  expect  him  back  much  before 
five  o'clock;  it  would  be  dark  by  then  certainly,  but  not 
very  dark  for  the  day  was  clear,  with  a  touch  of  frost  in 
the  air;  one  of  those  days  when  the  last  of  the  sunset 
burns  low  down  in  the  sky  long  after  the  stars  are  out. 
It  was  not  much  after  four  o'clock  when  Julia  heard 
something  approaching,  certainly  not  Johnny  nor  any- 
thing connected  with  him,  for  it  was  the  throb  of  a  motor 
coming  fast.  Only  once  before  since  she  had  been  at  the 
cottage  had  she  heard  that  sound  on  the  lonely  road,  on 
the  day  when  Rawson-Clew  came.  It  could  not  be  him 
now,  she  was  sure  of  that.  He  might  have  received  the 
money  this  morning  certainly,  but  he  would  not  come 
because  of  that,  rather  he  would  keep  away;  there  was 
no  reason  why  he  should  come.  She  told  herself  it  was 


PAYMENT    AND    RECEIPT  359 

impossible,  and  then  went  to  the  door  to  see,  puzzled  in 
her  own  mind  what  she  should  say  if  the  impossible  had 
happened  and  it  was  he. 

The  throbbing  had  ceased  by  now ;  there  was  the  click 
of  the  gate  even  as  she  opened  the  door,  and  he — it  was 
he  and  no  other — was  coming  up  the  little  brick  path 
in  the  twilight.  His  face  was  curiously  clear  in  the  light 
which  lingered  low  down;  and  when  she  saw  it  and  the 
look  it  wore,  all  plans  of  what  she  should  say  fled,  and 
the  feeling  came  upon  her  which  was  like  that  which 
came  when  she  crouched  behind  the  chopping-block  and 
he  barred  the  way.  It  seemed  as  if  he  had  been  pursuing 
and  she  escaping  and  eluding  for  a  long  time,  but  now — 
he  was  coming  up  the  path  and  she  was  standing  in  the 
doorway  with  the  pale  light  strong  on  her  face  and  no- 
where to  fly  to  and  no  way  of  escape. 

"Why  did  you  not  tell  me  before?"  he  said  without 
any  greeting  at  all,  and  he  spoke  as  if  he  had  right  and 
authority.  "Why  did  you  let  this  thing  weigh  on  you 
for  two  years  and  never  say  a  word  of  it  to  me  ?" 

"I  was  ashamed,"  she  answered  with  truth.  Then  the 
spirit  which  still  inhabits  some  women,  making  them  will- 
ing to  be  won  by  capture,  prompted  her  to  struggle 
against  the  capitulation  she  was  ready  to  make.  "There 
was  nothing  to  speak  of  to  you  or  any  one  else,"  she  said, 
with  an  effort  at  her  old  assurance,  and  she  led  the  way 
in  as  she  spoke.  "I  never  meant  to  speak  of  it  at  all,  I 
meant  just  to  pay  the  debt  as  from  father,  and  not  my- 
self appear  in  it.  I  did  not  do  it  that  way,  I  know;  I 
could  not;  I  did  not  get  the  money  till  yesterday  and — 
and" — the  assurance  faded  away  pathetically — "that  was 
too  late." 

Rawson-Clew  looked  down,  and  for  the  first  time 
noticed  her  mourning  dress,  and  realising  what  it  meant, 


360  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

remembered  that  convention  demanded  that  a  man,  whose 
claim  depends  on  another's  death,  should  not  push  it  as 
soon  as  the  funeral  is  over.  However  he  did  not  go  away, 
the  pathos  of  Julia's  voice  kept  him. 

"Late  or  early  would  have  made  little  difference,"  he 
said;  "it  is  just  the  same  now  as  if  it  had  been  early. 
Do  you  think  I  should  not  have  known  who  sent  the 
money  at  whatever  time  and  in  whatever  circumstances 
it  was  paid  ?  Do  you  think  I  know  two  people  who  would 
pay  a  debt,  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  exist,  in  such  a 
way?" 

But  Julia  was  not  comforted.  "It  is  too  late,"  she  re- 
repeated;  "too  late  for  any  satisfaction.  I  thought  I 
would  prove  that  we  were  honest  and  honourable  by  pay- 
ing it ;  I  wanted  to  show  father — that  I — that  our  stand- 
ard was  the  same  as  yours,  and  I  have  not." 

"No,"  he  answered,  "you  have  not  and  you  never  will ; 
your  standard  is  not  the  same  as  mine ;  mine  is  the  honour 
of  an  accepted  convention,  and  yours  is  the  honour  of  a 
personal  truth,  a  personal  experience,  the  honour  of  the 
soul." 

But  she  shook  her  head.  "It  is  not  really,"  she  said ; 
"and  father " 

"As  to  your  father,"  he  interrupted  gently,  "do  you 
not  think  that  sometimes  the  potter's  thumb  slips  in  the 
making  of  a  vessel  ?" 

She  looked  up  with  a  feeling  of  gratitude.  "Yes,"  she 
said;  "yes,  that  is  it,  if  only  we  could  realise  it — poor 
father.  It  was  partly  our  fault,  too,  mother's,  all  of  ours 
— and  he  is  dead  now." 

"I  know.  Let  him  rest  in  peace ;  we  are  concerned  no 
more  with  his  doings  or  misdoings;  our  concern,  yours 
and  mine  is  with  the  living." 

She  did  not  answer;  a  piece  of  wood  had  fallen  from 


PAYMENT    AND    RECEIPT  361 

the  fire  and  lay  blazing  and  spluttering  on  the  hearth ;  she 
stooped  to  pick  it  up  and  he  watched  her. 

"I  know  I  have  no  business  here  now,"  he  said.  "Had 
I  known  of  his  death  before,  I  would  not  have  come  to- 
day; I  would  have  waited,  but  since  I  have  come — 
Julia » 

She  was  standing  straight  now,  the  wood  safely  back 
in  the  fire ;  he  put  his  hands  on  her  shoulders  and  turned 
her  to  him.  "Julia,  you  and  I  have  always  dealt  open- 
ly, without  regarding  appearances,  let  us  deal  so  now — 
since  I  have  come.  Won't  you  let  me  give  you  a  re- 
ceipt?" 

Julia  said  afterwards  that  receipts  for  the  payment  of 
such  debts  were  unnecessary  and  never  given ;  which  was 
perhaps  as  well,  for  the  one  she  received  in  the  dusk  was 
not  of  a  kind  recognised  at  law.  Could  it  afterwards 
have  been  produced  it  would  not  have  proved  the  pay- 
ment of  money,  though  at  the  time  it  proved  several 
things,  principally  the  fact  that,  though  friendship  and 
comradeship  are  fine  and  excellent  things,  there  are  sim- 
ple primitive  passions  which  leap  up  through  them  and 
transfigure  them  and  forget  them,  and  it  is  these  which 
make  man  man,  and  woman  woman,  and  life  worth  liv- 
ing, and  the  world  worth  winning  and  losing,  too,  and 
bring  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  earth  again. 

It  also  proved  how  exceedingly  firmly  a  man  who  is 
in  the  habit  of  wearing  a  single  eyeglass  must  screw  it 
into  his  eye,  for,  as  Julia  remarked  with  some  surprise, 
the  one  which  interested  her  did  not  fall  out. 

Mr.  Gillat  came  home  with  his  fir-cones  at  a  quarter 
to  five.  And  when  he  came  he  saw  that,  to  him,  most 
fascinating  sight — a  motor-car,  standing  empty  and  quiet 


362  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

by  the  gate.  He  looked  at  it  with  keen  interest,  then  he 
looked  round  the  empty  landscape  for  its  owner,  and  not 
seeing  him,  wondered  if  he  was  in  the  house.  He  put 
away  the  cones  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  owner 
was  not  there  and  the  car  was  an  abandoned  derelict.  For 
which,  perhaps,  he  may  be  forgiven,  for  there  was  no 
light  at  the  parlour  window  and  no  sound  of  voices  that 
he  could  hear  from  the  kitchen;  even  when  he  opened 
the  door  and  walked  in  he  did  not  in  the  firelight  see  any 
one  besides  Julia  at  first. 

"Julia,"  he  said,  bringing  in  the  astonishing  news, 
"there  is  a  motor-car  outside !" 

"Yes,"  Julia  answered  composedly;  "but  it  is  going 
away  soon." 

"Not  very  soon,"  another  voice  spoke  out  of  the  gloom 
of  the  chimney  corner,  and  Johnny  jumped  as  he  recog- 
nised it. 

"Dear  me!"  he  said;  "dear  me!  Mr.  Rawson-Clew! 
How  do  you  do?  I  am  pleased  to  see  you." 

The  motor  did  not  go  away  very  soon ;  it  stayed  quite 
as  long,  rather  longer,  in  fact,  than  Mr.  Gillat  expected. 
And  when  it  did  go,  he  did  not  have  the  pleasure  of  see- 
ing it  start;  he  somehow  got  shut  in  the  kitchen  while 
Julia  went  out  to  the  gate. 

When  she  came  back  she  shut  the  door  carefully,  then 
turned  to  him,  and  he  noticed  how  her  eyes  were  shining. 
"Johnny,"  she  said,  "I  am  a  selfish  beast ;  I  am  going  to 
leave  you.  Not  yet,  oh,  not  yet,  but  one  day." 

Johnny  stared  a  moment,  then  said,  "Of  course,  oh,  of 
course,  to  be  sure — to  live  with  your  mother,  she'll  want 
you.  A  wonderful  woman." 

"Not  to  live  with  my  mother,"  Julia  said  emphatically. 
"Sit  down  and  I  will  tell  you  all  about  it." 

And  she  told,   slowly  and  suitably,   fearing  that  he 


PAYMENT    AND    RECEIPT  363 

would  hardly  understand  the  wonderful  goodness  of  fate 
to  her.  But  she  need  not  have  been  afraid;  he  took  her 
meaning  at  once,  far  quicker  than  she  expected,  for  he 
saw  no  wonder  in  it,  only  a  very  great  goodness  for  the 
man  who  had  won  her,  and  a  great  and  radiant  happiness 
for  himself  in  the  happiness  that  had  come  to  her.  As 
for  his  loneliness,  he  never  thought  of  that,  why  should 
he  ?  Of  course  she  would  leave  him,  it  was  the  right  and 
proper  thing  to  do ;  she  would  leave  him  anyhow. 

"You  couldn't  go  on  living  with  me  here,"  he  said ;  "I 
mean,  I  couldn't  go  on  living  with  you ;  it  wouldn't  be  the 
thing,  you  know ;  you  must  think  of  that." 

Julia  caught  her  breath  between  tears  and  laughter,  but 
he  went  on  stoutly:  "I  shall  go  back  to  town,  to  Mrs. 
Horn ;  I  shall  like  it — at  least  when  I  get  used  to  it.  It 
is  quite  time  I  went  back  to  town ;  a  man  ought  not  to  stay 
too  long  in  the  country ;  he  gets  rusty." 

"You  won't  go  back  to  town,"  Julia  said;  "you  will 
never  do  that.  You  will  stay  here  in  the  cottage,  and 
Mrs.  Gray  from  next  door  to  the  shop  will  come  and  live 
here  as  your  housekeeper ;  I  am  going  to  arrange  it  with 
her.  She  will  come  and  she  will  bring  her  little  grand- 
daughter and  you  will  keep  on  living  here  always." 

For  a  moment  Johnny's  face  beamed ;  the  prospect  was 
exquisite ;  but  he  sternly  put  it  from  him.  "No,"  he  said, 
"I  shouldn't  like  that ;  it's  kind  of  you,  but " 

"Johnny,"  Julia  interrupted,  "you  should  always  speak 
the  truth — you  do  anything  else  so  badly !  I  don't  mind 
if  you  like  my  plan  or  not,  you  will  have  to  put  up  with 
it  to  help  me;  some  one  must  take  care  of  the  cottage." 

"But  you  will  want  to  come  yourself,"  Mr.  Gillat  pro- 
tested. 

"Never,  unless  you  are  here." 

In  the  end  Julia  had  her  way.    Johnny  lived  at  the 


364  THE    GOOD    COMRADE 

cottage,  and  Mrs.  Gray  and  her  grandchild  came  to  keep 
house.  And  Billy,  Mrs.  Gray's  nephew,  came  to  help  in 
the  garden  and  take  care  of  the  donkey;  in  the  spring 
there  was  a  donkey  added  to  the  establishment,  and  a  lit- 
tle tub-cart  which  held  four  children  easily,  besides  Mr. 
Gillat.  And  it  is  doubtful  if,  in  all  the  country  round, 
there  was  a  happier  man  than  he  who  tended  Julia's  plants 
in  Julia's  garden,  and  drove  parties  of  chattering  children 
along  the  quiet  lanes,  and  sat  on  warm  summer  evenings 
beside  his  old  friend's  grave  in  Halgrave  churchyard.  He 
had  forgotten  many  things,  old  slights  and  old  pains,  and 
old  losses;  forgotten,  perhaps,  most  things  except  love. 
Foolish  Johnny,  God's  fool,  basking  in  God's  sunshine. 
And  Julia  and  Rawson-Clew  were  married,  very  quiet- 
ly, without  any  pomp  or  ostentation  at  all.  And  if,  on 
the  honeymoon,  he  did  not  show  her  all  the  places  he 
had  thought  of  on  the  day  when  he  travelled  north  with 
the  girl  with  the  carnations,  it  was  because  he  had  not 
several  years  at  his  disposal  just  then.  Afterwards  he 
made  up  for  it  as  work  allowed  and  time  could  be  found. 
In  the  record  of  their  lives  there  are  many  days  noted 
down  as  holidays,  even  such  holidays  as  that  first  one 
spent  on  the  Dunes.  In  the  springtime,  when  the  bulb 
flowers  were  in  bloom,  they  went  once  more  to  the  Dunes 
and  to  the  little  old  town  where  the  Van  Heigens  lived. 
They  were  received  with  much  ceremony  by  Mijnheer  and 
his  wife,  and  entertained  at  a  dinner  which  lasted  from 
four  till  half-past  six.  It  is  true  that  afterwards  state 
had  to  be  lain  aside,  for  Julia  insisted  on  helping  to  wash 
the  priceless  Nankeen  china  while  her  husband  smoked 
long  cigars  with  Mijnheer  on  the  veranda,  but  that  was 
all  her  own  fault.  Denah  came  to  tea  drinking,  she  and 
her  lately-wed  husband,  the  bashful  son  of  a  well-to-do 
shipowner.  She  was  very  smiling  and  all  bustling  and 


PAYMENT    AND    RECEIPT  365 

greatly  pleased  with  herself  and  all  things,  and  if  she 
thought  poorly  of  Julia  for  washing  the  plates,  she 
thought  very  well  of  the  glittering  rings  she  had  left  on 
the  veranda-table  and  well,  too,  of  her  husband,  who  she 
recognised  as  the  mysterious  "man  of  good  family"  they 
had  seen  on  the  day  they  drove  to  the  wood.  And  after- 
wards when  the  tea  drinking  was  done  and  the  dew  was 
falling,  Julia  walked  with  Joost  among  his  flowers,  and 
heard  him  speak  of  his  hopes  and  ambitions,  and  knew 
that  in  his  work  he  had  found  all  the  satisfaction  that  a 
man  may  reasonably  hope  for  here. 

Later,  Julia  and  her  husband  walked  through  the  tidy 
streets  of  the  town,  looking  in  at  lighted  windows,  listen- 
ing to  the  patois  of  the  peasants  and  recalling  past  times. 
It  was  then  that  he  told  her  how  he  had  that  day  tried  to 
buy  back  the  streaked  daffodil. 

"And  Mijnheer  would  not  sell  it?"  she  asked. 

"No,"  he  answered;  "not  at  any  price,  so  I  am  afraid 
that  you  will  have  to  do  without  'The  Good  Comrade* 
after  all." 

"I?"  she  said;  "I  can  do  quite  well.  Thank  you  for 
trying  to  get  it;  all  the  same  I  am  not  sure  I  want  it 
back." 

"Do  you  not  ?  Then  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  do  not,  in- 
deed, I  rather  fancy  I  already  have  the  real  'Good  Com- 
rade.' " 


A     000129087     3 


